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AN 



ANALYSIS 

OF THE 

LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE, 



COMMENCING WITH 



&f)* Origin an& ^Formation of fLanguage; 



TAKING A VIEW OF ITS 



GROWTH AND GRADUAL DEVELOPEMENT UNTIL IT ASSUMED 
THE CHARACTER OF NEATNESS AND ACCURACY; 



TOGETHER WITH 



CRITICAL REMARKS, 

ELEGANT EXTRACTS, AND BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNTS, 

FROM THE 

WRITINGS AND THE LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT OF 

HER POETS, HISTORIANS, PHILOSOPHERS, 

ORATORS, &c. 

THE WHOLE COMPRESSED, AND RENDERED AGREEABLE TO THE GENERAL 

READER : BUT PRINCIPALLY INTENDED FOR SENIOR 

PUPILS OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. 



~ » -. , . 

BY H.BRAILSFORD,T.C.D. 

OFFICIATING MASTER OF THE ROYAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, MANSFIELD. 



LONDON: 
LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER-ROW; 

AND 

BROOKE AND CO. DONCASTER. 
1833. 



6^ 



o^O 



DONCASTER : 

PRINTED BY BROOKE AND CO. HIGH-STREET, 



DEDICATION. 



TO 



THE REV. L. J. HOBSON, 

<LATE HEAD MASTER OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF DONCASTER, 
AND INCUMBENT OF HIGH MELTON AND MEXBRO*. 



ItEVEREND SIR, 

When first I communicated to 
you my thoughts of publishing this little 
Work, which in the first instance was merely 
an article prepared for and read before a 
literary society, you countenanced my pre- 
tensions, and generously offered your services : 
therefore, apart from the consciousness of any 
other obligation, this alone demands an ac- 
knowledgment ; but beyond this, it is to the 
accuracy of your remarks and well directed 
observations that I have been indebted 
throughout. 

Every heart, Sir, that is tuned to sentiments 
of gratitude and esteem, must feel a lively 
pleasure in casting the fillet of his early muse 



IV 



at the feet of him under whose auspices he 
culled the opening buds of science. 

The gratification which I derive from having 
finished my labour, is not in being able to 
give a book to the world, for that would be 
inadequate to the expediency of the case; 
but it is in the satisfaction I feel in having it 
in my power to pay a tribute of gratitude to 
a good master. Therefore, begging that you 
will receive this as the sincerest testimony I 
can bear to the sense I entertain of your 
faithful concern as a tutor, and devoted in- 
terest as a friend, believe me to regard you 
with that esteem with which, 

I have the honour to be, 

Reverend sir, 
Your obliged and obedient 
servant, 
H. BRAILSFORD. 

Grammar School, Mansfield, 



PREFACE. 



The design of this article is rather to illus- 
trate and explain some of the beauties of the 
classics, so as to recommend them to the study 
and attention of others, than to affect erudi- 
tion by any critical analysis of those points 
which would fall with much better grace 
from the pen of the Professor. If, at an 
early period of this treatise, I have stumbled 
in endeavouring to obtain what may fairly 
be termed a fundamental principle, and have 
appeared to wander too far into the barren 
tracts of mythology, I would apologize for 
being tedious and uninteresting to my reader, 
while my aim has been to elicit truth, and 
to trace in fable the lines of real character. 
If in this I have not succeeded, the arduous 
nature of the subject shall be my plea — and 
my own inefficiency to cope with the diffi- 
culties of it ; but, on the other hand, should 
I have rendered clear by deduction and evi- 
dent means of reason, much more credit is 
due to the judgment of those who have han- 
dled the subject more ripely than to me ; for 



VI 



not having the advantage of many friends 
with whom I could satisfactorily communicate, 
I have heen reduced to the necessity of con- 
ferring more largely with their works. By 
the labours of none perhaps have I been more 
obliged than those of Mr. Alhvood, whose 
remarks on literary antiquities have greatly 
served me ; and where the sentiments of the 
author have been what, without arrogance, I 
could call my own, I have not hesitated to 
compile, judging it more civil to own a 
literary obligation than so to pervert the fa- 
vour as to abuse the gift. To Mr. Dunbar, 
whose talents as a professor rank so high as to 
be beyond any compliment of mine, I would 
acknowledge myself indebted; and whose 
general good acquaintance with the language 
is evident in the familiar manner with which 
he treats his subject, apart, it will be admitted, 
from that erudite criticism in which it has 
been the happiness of others to excel. 

Many useful and valuable hints have been 
gathered from the pages of the Classical 
Journal ; an article this which is well calcu- 
lated to excite the inquisitive vigilance of 
every critical enquirer, and which, since it 
has ceased to appear, has not failed to im- 
poverish that fertile source from which the 
acting energy of the soul seeks its nourish- 
ment. For the period of twenty years, as 



Vll 



the author observes, this periodical has been 
the channel in which scholars communicating 
together have in many instances succeeded in 
producing that collision of sentiment which 
has not unfrequently ended in the happy elu- 
cidation of truth. The worth of such a pe- 
riodical can only be estimated when it ceases 
to exist ; nor can its merits be fully appre- 
ciated until society experience the loss of 
it. If I need the use of apology for tres- 
passing upon the attention with sentiments 
which may have been more efficiently ex- 
pressed by others, I would briefly observe, 
that an idea which is foreign to the writer 
rather than an acquisition would prove a hin- 
drance to him, if not consolidated with his 
own sentiments and digested in his own mind. 
In this, as in every science, the ideas of 
others serve as food to our own minds ; for 
they dictate those feelings which an individual 
poverty of expression would preserve in the 
embryo of mental cogitation. Thus thought 
answers to thought, and corresponding views 
meet the exigencies of our own invention. 
Did the work aspire to the dignity of a regular 
treatise on the subject of these remarks, a 
much higher demand would be made upon 
us, and more efficient talent required ; but in 
detached essays of a more humble pretension, 
where the ideas of the writer shift rapidly 



Vlll 



from theme to theme, or from one point of 
ohservation to another, willing to observe traits 
of beauty in each, his latitude is more ample, 
and he becomes exonerated from the more 
serious charge of irregularity which might 
otherwise be preferred against him. Thus, in 
these papers light and serious topics are alter- 
nately treated of, such as would naturally 
present themselves to the mind when illus- 
trating the lessons of my senior pupils, at the 
same time amplifying the sense and adjusting 
the merits of each passage ; for it is my prac- 
tice, as it is and ever has been a custom with 
some of my superiors, to evidence the sense 
of one passage by the parallel signification of 
another, and to simplify what may appear ob- 
scure in the author's meaning by the pleasing 
rules of lucidation and regular construction. 
For there is an accuracy in the position of 
words and letters in the Greek language, 
that almost amounts to philosophical, and 
which analysis alone can regulate, and a gene- 
ral acquaintance with Greece as to her man- 
ners, customs, laws, and usages, together with 
a familiarity in her mode of expression, alone 
can justify and render agreeable. It will also 
be allowed, that there are many inherent 
beauties,— much force of expression and 
purity of sentiment which to the tyro are but 
a dead letter, and of little interest, unless 



}% 



presented to his attention and recommended 
to his enquiry ; for without this the spirit of 
the author is never imbibed, his worth never 
appreciated, and his excellence totally un- 
known. Few masters would suffer a pupil to 
read Homer without descanting often upon 
the respective merits, excellencies parallel, 
and individual peculiarities of the Maeonian 
and Mantuan bards, together with occasional 
allusions to the native grandeur, force, and 
boldness of the epic muse. The use of trans- 
lations, although countenanced by some, is 
not, we apprehend, generally admitted into 
schools of any classical character. Indeed, 
those helps and accommodations which, like 
an Icarian flight, facilitate the ascent to Par- 
nassus, transport, if we may use the expression, 
the earthborn aspirant, as yet ignorant of what 
is nutritious in his own clime, to a latitude far 
exceeding that genial warmth which gives 
vigour and stability. But, however, let us not 
be thought too ascetic, for we will admit that 
much oral information may be given, and 
many a difficulty resolved to the pupil by 
a free communication on the part of the tutor : 
but beyond this let not the venerable name 
of Cicero, for instance, be associated with the 
ordinary attainments of the tyro in any early 
stage of advancement. It is worthy of obser- 
vation, that in the use of these auxiliaries the 

b 



end and purpose of a formal system may be 
answered. Hence much of the fire and genius 
of Homer's song is recognised in the Paradise 
Lost ; and greatly is it to the advantage of 
the pupil, when, upon the principles of Cicero 
and Demosthenes, we admire the sterling 
eloquence of Pitt and Fox. The utility of 
such a system, let it be understood, from oral 
communication is unquestionable, and it is 
more than equal to the most successful result. 
By this means interest is excited, enquiry 
promoted ; and thus many a nestling poet or 
embryo statesman is seen to climb the forms 
of our public schools ; for the pupil will study 
with much more interest the "writ' ngs of any 
author, if he have formed any previous ac- 
quaintance with the man; and his know- 
ledge of the properties of a poem and the 
character of a poet, will materially assist him 
in discerning the beauties of the writer, and 
of deriving utility from the whole. 

Perhaps it may not be incompatible with 
the nature of this enquiry, if in this place we 
premise a little upon chronology — a science 
which, how varied soever in its sources, must, 
in historical treatises be reduced to one prin- 
ciple. 

The earliest features of chronology we may 
discover in the oral records of the antediluvian 
and post-diluvian patriarchs, who, in conse- 
quence of their extreme longevity, preserved 



XI 



living accounts of the transactions of many 
centuries. For instance, Adam, the father of 
the human race, would become the earliest 
and most authentic historian for upwards of 
nine centuries of the world ; and the dates 
assigned for the events in the antediluvian 
world are of all others least controverted. 
Methuselah was born 240 years prior to the 
death of Adam ; therefore the authenticity of 
his account will admit of no question, and the 
death of Methuselah took place but a few 
weeks before Noah entered the ark, conse- 
quently the relations of Methuselah, as to 
the first creation and early stage of things, 
would be as correct and circumstantial as that 
which might descend in the oral tradition of 
any grand or even great grandfather. Thus 
Noah, who by this means had gained what 
we may fairly term correct information, would 
take it beyond the flood, and read his history 
to the patriarch Abram, who, we are informed, 
lived about fifty-eight years with the ante- 
diluvian and post-diluvian patriarch. Now, 
the idea that Abram, though supposed to have 
been contemporary, might not have an oppor- 
tunity of conversing with Noah, will be very 
unsatisfactory, when we take into consideration 
that the father of Abraham was a native of 
Mesopotamia, a country known at this day to 
be situated on the Tigris, only 200 miles 

62 



XII 



S.S.W. of Ararat, on which we learn that 
the ark rested. Ahraham died before Shem, 
and Jacob was fifty years of age when the 
latter died ; therefore, setting aside the great 
probability of his having related the circum- 
stances of early period to his children, Jacob 
would have the history of the formation of 
man, and all the tragical events of the first 
ages of the world, the universal deluge, &c, 
in the third edition from Adam. Some writers 
have asserted, that he committed to writing 
the account which he had received ; but how- 
soever this speculation may answer, we have 
history to vouch that Levi, who would bear 
the testimony of his father, died but forty- 
eight years before the birth of Moses. The 
events of the old world, therefore, and those 
transactions which had occupied the attention 
of the post-diluvian patriarchs, could not fail 
of being communicated to Moses (apart from 
the fact of his being an inspired writer) through 
the most correct channels in which the most 
authentic documents or oral traditions could 
be obtained, although as yet chronology had 
not assumed the form of a regular science. 
In the early periods of the world time was 
measured by the seasons, the revolution of 
the sun and moon. It was not till after the 
lapse of many ages that a regular mode of 
computation by dating events was adopted. 



Mil 



Even the historians, Herodotus and Thucy- 
dides, have no regular dates for the events 
recorded by them in their histories. The first 
attempt made to establish a fixed era was in 
the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which was 
by comparing and correcting the dates of the 
Olympiads, the reigns of the kings of Sparta, 
and the succession of the priestesses of Juno 
at Argos. Amongst the most successful la- 
bourers in clearing up the rugged path, the 
names of J. Africanus, Eusebius, Syncellus, 
John of Antioch, Scaliger, Helvicus, Petavius, 
Usher, Marsham, Vossius, Newton, Lenglet, 
Blair, Playfair, and Hales, may be mentioned 
with grateful satisfaction. How difficult a 
task it must be to affix any precise date to 
controverted points, will appear very plainly 
by adducing one instance, which perhaps, 
of all others most unsupported, is, notwith- 
standing the subject, of very diversified opi- 
nions, viz.- — the period which elapsed between 
the creation of the world and the birth of 
Christ. J. Africanus, who wrote about 221 
of our era, reduced the period above stated to 
5500 years. Lactantius, of the fourth cen- 
tury, followed Africanus ; Eusebius, contem- 
temporary with the former mentioned father, 
to 5200 years. Dr. Russell, in his Connexion 
of Sacred and Profane History, has given 
a history and copy at large of the Parian 



XIV 



chronicle. To this we would refer our more 
critical readers; and in conclusion observe, 
that we have adopted the dates of the Parian 
chronicle, and subsequently those of the Greek 
Olympiads, as being the regular and more 
approved annals of classical disquisitions. 

As an apology for thus obtruding himself 
upon the attention of the public, may the 
author be allowed that, it was not with the 
intent of publication that he formed the idea 
of throwing together a few remarks upon Greek 
literature ; but, as in frequent conversation 
upon a subject, in connexion with close appli- 
cation, the information becomes more ample, 
and consequently the capacity for communi- 
cating more extended, the developement is 
clearer and the evidence more correct; so, 
partly at the suggestion of a few literary 
friends, and again presuming that a treatise of 
this nature would not be ill received, parti- 
cularly by a class of readers whose study is 
general knowledge, he has brought to the 
press what, under other circumstances, would 
would have remained in manuscript. If the 
remarks on the Greek authors, which are for 
the most part his own, meet not the approba- 
tion of the nice discerner of elegant minutiae, 
the inefficiency is to be attributed perhaps to 
the author's want of judgment and expe- 
rience : in this case, he demands that in- 



XV 



dulgence which is the privilege of immature 
criticism. 

The manner in which this subject is treated, 
howsoever it may meet with objection from 
some, inasmuch as it differs from, so it is 
conceived to be an improvement upon the 
method of any former treatise of this nature. 
It was thought better to commence with an 
existing language, than to descend to the first 
stage of communicating idea, because the 
former would exonerate the author from any 
conclusive remarks upon that eventful period 
of uncertainty, which it would be arrogant in 
him to attempt, and the latter would involve 
the reader in a detail perhaps irksome and 
unsuited to the nature of his work. 



SUBSCRIBERS. 



Rev. J. Sharpe, D. D. Vicar of Doncaster, 2 copies. 
Rev. L. J. Hobson, late Master of the Grammar 

School at Doncaster. 
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Edward Sykes, Esq. Mansfield Woodhouse. 
Captain Milner, ditto. 
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XV111 

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CONTENTS 



CHAP. I. 



CHAP. II. 



TAGE 

Preliminary Remarks upon the Greek Language 
— as evidently arising out of the Distribution 
of Tongues — together with some observations 

on its Nature and early Progress .... 1 
The Formation of Letters as we have them — 
Cadmus — the Cultivation of the Language 

up to the period of a regular Composition . 27 

CHAP. III. Lyric Poetry 30 

The Nature of the Greek Ode 32 

Alcaeus, Stesichorus, and Simonides . . . . ib. 

Anacreon 33 

Pindar 36 

Hesiod 41 

Remarks upon the Epic Poetry of the Ancient 

Greeks 42 

Homer 45 

History — its earliest Annals, natural Discre- 
pancies, and pristine Importance . ... 59 

Herodotus 63 

Thucydides 65 

Xenophon 68 

CHAP. VII. The Origin, Formation, and Nature of the 

Greek Drama 72 

iEschylus 77 

Sophocles 81 

Euripides 83 

CHAP. VIII. Comedy . : 97 

Epicharmus and Aristophanes 98 



CHAP. IV. 
CHAP. V. 



CHAP. VI. 



XX 



PAGE 

CHAP. IX. Philosophy 101 

Socrates ib. 

Plato 107 

Aristotle 113 

Isocrates 120 

CHAP. X. Demosthenes 128 

CHAP. XI. Pastoral Poetry—Theocritus 136 

CHAP. XII. Conclusion 137 

Greek Classic Writers 153 



AN ANALYSIS, 



&c. 



CHAP. I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS UPON THE GREEK LAN- 
GUAGE AS EVIDENTLY ARISING OUT OF THE 

DISTRIBUTION OF TONGUES TOGETHER WITH 

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ITS NATURE AND EARLY 
PROGRESS. 

In an enquiry of this nature, having for its object 
" An Analysis of the Literature of Ancient Greece," 
many difficulties must at the outset unavoidably 
present themselves. When probability is, as it were, 
the extreme point of certainty, it is by analogy alone 
that any truth may be elicited ; and by bringing 
a great number of probabilities to bear upon one 
point, sometimes we may arrive at fact. The errors 
of former ages are chiefly to be attributed to the 
neglect of this grand rule, by which the credit of 
every point should be established. Since the con- 
tinuance of that night of barbarism, of which his- 
tory can tell nothing, the little information we can 
obtain as to the state of things for many ages subse- 
quent to the deluge, and the little dependance we are 
authorized to place upon them, (or rather accounts 
respecting them,) may be inferred from the trifling 

B 



knowledge that the early writers themselves had 
as to the introduction of letters into Greece. The 
resources from which to draw correct information 
appear to be entirely wanting", if we limit our re- 
searches to profane writers : the certainty of fact is 
lost in the fables of tradition ; every circumstance, 
every narration, is mutilated and made subservient 
to the ignorant taste of a barbarous age. The 
fabulous accounts of an event in the history of any 
one nation, abstractly considered, will afford but 
little assistance to the discovery of truth. Lan- 
guage, which is frequently the most accurate guide 
to the investigation of truth, presents, in this in- 
stance, little else than a mixture of compounds — 
hence frequent reference to other languages is neces- 
sary to its being understood — and little dependance 
in this respect is to be placed upon the Hebrew. 
The view which this article professes to take, will 
not argue the necessity of any observations prior to 
the general dispersion of languages. We will say 
a word or two concerning that miraculous event, 
and then proceed with the language, as naturally 
arising from that event. To fix the precise period 
for the building of Babel, and the consequent distri- 
bution of speech, agreeably with received opinion, 
and at the same time consonant with our own ideas 
of things, is a point much to be desired. The 
Hebrew is the text, to the reckonings of which 
all the translations of the Scriptures adhere; and 
which dates the building of Babel, and consequently 
the dispersion of mankind, 2233-4, A. c. ; and the 
birth of Abraham, 1996 A. c. Hence the dispersion 
is placed 115 years subsequent to the general deluge. 



Now, upon a little inquiry, we find that between 
Noah and Nimrod were three generations :* Noah 
was the father of Ham, Ham of Cush, and Cush 
of Nimrod. According* to the Mosaic account, we 
have seven male individuals in the family of Japhet, 
(Gomer, Magog", Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, 
and Tiras,) four in that of Ham, (Cush, Mizraim, 
Phut, and Canaan,) and five in that of Shem, 
(Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aran.) Before 
a wife could be given to each of these, we must 
suppose an equal number of daughters in their 
respective families; and allowing each of these 
married couples to be as fruitful as their parents, 
the result would be 16x10 = 160, at the birth of 
Cush. These 160 persons being eighty married 
couples — and if to each couple we allow ten chil- 
dren, 80x10=800, the number of children pro- 
duced ) and if to these we add their progenitors, 
namely, fathers and mothers, together with Noah 
and his wife, the total will be 1000 individuals ; 
and amongst these great grandchildren was Nimrod. 
Now this should appear too small a number to 
produce an usurpation on the part of Nimrod — 
the building of Babel and dispersion of mankind 
— considering that more than one-half of this 
number was infants and young children, and con- 
sequently of no service in the building of Babel. 
From this statement of the Hebrew text, it would 
appear that the chronology was much too short. 
Now the reckoning of the Septuagint places the 

* Bel — Belial — with the Greeks Be\ias — Dagon, and feminine 
Atargatis — and Meon and Deucalion. — Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, 
p. 245. 

b2 



4 

birth of Nimrod 334 p. d. (204 years later than 
the Hebrew text) : if we admit this period, and 
allow some few years after for the formation of 
kingdoms and separation under different leaders, 
it will be more reconcilable to the nature of things. 
If this date of the Hebrew text be incorrect, it 
follows that the birth of Abraham is also placed at 
a wrong period : and by referring' to the Septuagint 
we find that fixed 1070, P. D. Josephns asserts, 
that he compiled his Antiquities from the Hebrew 
Scriptures, and yet his chronology perfectly agrees 
with the Septuagint computation. In fact we 
learn that the chronology of the Hebrew text, 
as adopted by Josephns, was the only reckoning 
known ; and prior to the first part of the second 
century (127 A. c.) of our era, all the authors, 
Jews, Christians, or Heathens, had recourse to the 
Hebrew and Greek texts indiscriminately, without 
suspicion of their not agreeing in regard to facts, 
language, or dates : and yet the difference between 
the Hebrew text and Greek translation, according 
to Dr. Russell, amounts to no less than 1437 years, 
to Riccioli, 1630, and to the Alphonsine Tables, 
2996, from Adam to Christ. Hence according to 
the Septuagint version, we shall place the birth of 
Nimrod 334 years p. D., and that of Abraham 1070. 
And, with this conclusion, Egypt might have been 
in a flourishing state at the descent of the patriarch 
into that country; which opinion has received the 
sanction of the generality of writers upon early 
literature: yet Mr. Al wood, in his Enquiry, has 
embraced the opposite opinion. " Their manners," 



says he, " were simple, and the sum of their literary 
knowledge amounted only to being able to read 
the law, even amongst the most learned of them."* 
And the Marquis of Spineto observes, that the 
natural state of Egypt, exposed to violent inun- 
dations and drought, was such as to require an 
immensity of labour, to cut the numberless canals, 
which were to carry the superabundant waters into 
the vast reservoirs, from which at proper times they 
were again to be distributed over the land. He 
adds, " the performance of such works, the building 
of cities such as those which are exhibited by their 
gigantic ruins, required a numerous population and 
a length of time; in short, the assistance of ages." 
This, in some measure, corroborates the statement 
made as to the early literary and scientific acquire- 
ments of the Egyptians; for if we admit the con- 
jecture of one author, we shall find that there were 
seventy nations then planted in the earth — a notion 
which has for its foundation a passage in the history 
given us by Moses, f That the number of the 
children of Israel being seventy, the country was 
divided into as many nations. On this part of our 
enquiry, Alwood writes to this effect: "To the 
assistance which may be borrowed from sacred and 
traditional records, relative to the fabulous ages of 
the world, we must subjoin that which arises from 
a view of the many remains still extant, of the arts, 
sciences, and religion during this period, and what 



* Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 30. 
t Deut. xxxii. 8. 



6 

end soever it may answer besides. 1 ' Authority like 
that which has been adduced, will in no wise dimi- 
nish the credit due to the former assertion, that the 
Hebrew computation is much too short. 

It was the reigning- principle of these ages, to 
envelope in fiction what, in its true character, would 
wear in some measure the semblance of truth. It is 
well known, that with the ancients it was a favourite 
idea to be thought descended from the gods; and 
to this end, artifice and deceit assumed the character 
of real ancestry : for there still remain monuments 
of antiquity, which the corroding lapse of time 
has not been able to obliterate. Their testimony, 
observes an ancient author, though mutilated, has 
never been corrupted. Hence the Pyramids, which, 
(while the page of history informs us they were as 
sepulchres for the Egyptian monarchs,)* in the 
mind of every Arab are cherished as the sacred 
shrine of the patriarch Joseph; as also with the 
Obelisks,f which were temples erected for the sym- 
bolical worship of the serpent, introduced into that 
country, the sacred caverns of Lower Egypt ; and, 
lastly, hieroglyphics, from the recent developement 

* Of the three Pyramids, Belzoni is said to have found human 
bones in the second in magnitude. 

t Obelisk, from oub, ob, and ob, el, a name given to the serpent. 
There were also pillars erected in every part in honour of him : these 
were denominated obelisks ; and on them were engraven curious 
hieroglyphical inscriptions. Hence I should rather suppose that the 
pillar in question, named the Pyramid, was one of these ; which being 
more firmly constructed than others, had withstood, beyond their 
time, the attacks of the elements and the waste of ages. — Alwood's 
Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 222. 



of which, we hope to drink largely of the stores of 
early information. It was in the absence of that 
sun, which happily beamed upon the minds of our 
ancestors, that an almost impenetrable darkness 
enveloped the face of things; and when at an after 
period he lent his own beams to rekindle the flame 
almost extinct, it was rather to warm the breast of 
her rude invaders, than to reanimate her own 
embers: for Egypt has ever been regarded as the 
mother of science and the arts. In these ages, then, 
we look for fable; and truth — having for its annals 
tradition. These must direct our researches: they 
are eventful memorials of past ages ; for these ages 
were by no means barren of real information. The 
poetry of the Sibylla Cumana, observes a learned 
author, is so remarkable in proof of the dispersion 
from Babel, that she was supposed to have actually 
come from Babylonia. For in a climate so fair as 
that which the first race of men inhabited, no 
wonder that the sun was an object of adoration for 
even Oannes, (who came out of the sea,) Menes, (to 
remain,) of Sanchoniatho ; and Noah, of Scripture, 
made his first sacrifice of fruit matured by the rays 
of the natural sun. Hence this deity received 
different personifications and epithets all over the 
east where he was worshipped, but particularly in 
Chaldsea 5 for it was here that idolatry first began 
to rear her rebellious standard — it was here that 
the lofty temple proudly rose above the plain, and 
that the first sacrifices were offered to the solar 
orb.* And with regard to the external rites of 

* Al wood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 161. 



8 

religion, the most ancient on record is that of 
offering 1 sacrifices.* 

The solar orb, to which we have alluded, in dif- 
ferent countries is differently personified. He is 
alike the Bacchus, or Iacchus,f Osiris, the son of 
Isis,f in Syria and Cyprus; Thammuz, or Adonis, § 
Atys,|| Mithras, Helios, or Delphin Apollo,5I Urotalt, 
in Arabia. He represented Samson or Shushan of 
Scripture, in the character and in the etymology of 
his name. Saos, Zeus, and Zeuth, on the plain 
of Babylon ; Hal, Ham, and Hades ; (from ad, es, 

* Vide Home's Comp. Analysis, p. 62. 

" Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard : 
and he drank of the wine, and was drunken." The following is the 
tradition, translated by Sir W. Jones, from the Padma-puran : — 

1 To Satyavarman, that sovereign of satisfying the gods, and priests, and kine, 
the whole earth, were born three sons ; one day by the act of destiny, the king 
the eldest Sherma; then Charma ; and having drunk mead, 

thirdly Japeti by name. 5 Became senseless, and lay asleep naked : 

2 They were all men of good morals, then was he seen by Charma, and by him 
excellent in virtue and virtuous deeds, were his two brothers called, 

skilled in the use of weapons to strike 6 To whom he said: "What now has 

with or to be thrown ; brave men eager for befallen ? In what state is this our sire ?" 

victory in battle. By those two was he hidden with clothes, 

3 The Satyavarman, being continually and called to his senses again and again, 
delighted with devout meditation, and 7 Having recovered his intellect, and 
seeing his sons fit for dominion, laid upon perfectly knowing what had passed, he 
them the burden of government. cursed Charma, saying, Thou shalt be the 

4 Whilst he remained honouring and servant of servants. 

How nearly this corresponds with the fact recorded in the sacred 
writings, will be easily seen by comparing it with Gen. ix. 21. But 
if such a tradition as this could exist in India, why not, in some 
degree, in Egypt first, and afterwards in Greece ? 

t Diod. Sic. 

X Plut. de Isid. et Osir. p. 70. 

§ Qajxod '6irep epi*7)veveTcu 'K.hd>vi$. — Chron. Alex. 

|| See Arnob. lib. v. 

IT Nonnus Dionysiac. lib. xi. 





lord of light jj Con, Elis, (or god of light) in 
the Peloponnesus; Son, Jun, (Zaan, Zoan, or Zan, 
from &u, to live,) in the East; Cui, (from kv^os,) 
Usiris, Ue. Sihur, or royal Schur of Egypt, Serapis, 
Amnion, Pan, Pluto,* &c. And all the deities of 
the eastern nations resolved themselves into one, 
namely, Jove; the priests and altars of which God 
are reconciled by Sanchoniatho as those of Jehovah : 
hence it would appear any thing but a difficult 
matter, that Scripture should be so far perverted 
to meet the blind ideas of a pagan world. j* In the 
actions of Apollo — his character, the nature of his 
birth, the exploits of his childhood and infancy, 
and the circumstances attending his deification — 

* Herod, lib. ii. 

t There was a tradition, according to Hyginus, that the serpent 
Python should be destroyed by the offspring of Latona. This off- 
spring is well known to have been Diana and Apollo, the last men- 
tioned of whom is synonymous with Hercules. He is understood to 
have possessed remarkable powers, and to have had a divine origin* 
The Lernaean Hydra, which was a serpent, Hercules is represented by 
Hyginus (Fab. xxx.) as treading beneath his feet. I cannot sum up 
the evidence of this fact better than in the Words of Mr. Parkhurst. 
te I find myself," says this author, "obliged to refer the Greek and 
Roman Hercules, to that class of idols which were originally designed 
to represent the promised Saviour, the desire of all nations. His 
other name, Adonis, is almost the very same with our Lord, a well- 
known title of Christ. I cannot forbear," continues he, " adding, 
from the learned Mr. Spearman, to whose second letter on the LXX 
I am much obliged in this article, that e according to Julius Firmicus, 
upon a certain night, while the solemnity [[in honour of Adonis^ 
lasted, an image was laid in a bed, and after great lamentation made 
over it, light was brought in, and the priest, anointing the mouths of 
the assistants, whispered to them that salvation was come, that deli- 
verance was brought to pass ;' or as Godwyn (Moses and Aaron, p. 18G) 

gives the words, ©afipeire t£ 0e<2, eVrt yap tjjjuv e'/c tt6pwv arwr-npia, Trust 
thou in God, for out of pains salvation is come unto us ;" upon which 
their sorrow was turned into joy, and the image taken, as it were, out 
of its sepulchre." — Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. 

C 



10 

there exists an evident coincidence when put in 
parallel with those related of Jesus Christ : and 
these traits of character we would esteem of no 
mean importance ; — for even the amours of Ju- 
piter, and the disgust with which we have been 
accustomed to execrate the fabulous accounts of 
that deity, become more tolerable, when we take 
into consideration the fact, that the terms fornica- 
tion and adultery were used in Scripture as syno- 
nymous with idolatry, and the expression was used 
to convey the same meaning*. Hence when Jupiter 
is said to have committed adultery with Semele, 
it was the establishing his rites in a country lapsed 
into idolatry ; and the death of Semele, occasioned 
by the overpowering majesty of the god, was a 
punishment of her idolatry. However, notwith- 
standing this delineation of feature, there exists a 
striking poverty in the comparison ; and while the 
obscurity of paganism furnished but matter for 
disquisition and doubt, the evidence of Scripture 
recommends itself to our judgment. Cadmus, as 
Dr. Potter observes,* was merely a personification 
of those temples in Egypt, where these idolatrous 
rites were performed with the greatest extrava- 
gance; and such sacred edifices were in general 
charged with hieroglyphical characters, on which 
account he has been fabled by tradition as the in- 
ventor of letters. 

The circumstances attending the marriage of 
Pelops and Hippodamia are highly figurative — 
since the etymology of the p-el-ops f the serpent-god, 
and the symbol of the serpent embracing the mun- 

* Grecian Antiq. vol. ii. 



11 

dune egg, or globe, were greatly reverenced by the 
Egyptians.* In Greece, those who adhered to the 
worship of the serpent were called Pelopidoe, whilst 
such as retained their ancient reverence for the ark, 
were distinguished by the titles of Danaides, Ar- 
givi, Arcades, I ones, each of which names is but an 
appellative for the ark. f In addition to these, the 
inhabitants of Attica were called Erechtheidae, from 
their leader Erechtheus, who, fable tells us, saved 
that country when in a state of positive famine. J 
And the people, out of gratitude for this service 
rendered in a time of most pressing need, concurred 
in adopting their benefactor for their king.§ But 
it is not only fable with which we have at present 
to do — we are in search of truth deducible from 
fable ; and in pursuance of this, the Erechtheidae 
we will denominate, as those who adhered to the 
ancient reverence paid to the ark, the analysis of 
which word will abundantly admit of this con- 
clusion ; for the primary part of it was a name for 
one of the principal cities of the dominions of 
Nimrod; and Thuth or Thoth, to which we have 
before adverted, was a title or name given to the 
principal deity of the country. When reduced to 
their Chaldaic origin, we find a remarkable affinity 
between this and the names of several other promi- 

* See Al wood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 182. 
t Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 174. 

X 'E| Aiyinrrov rhv 'EgexOea Koixlcrai, 5to rty avyyeveiav, airov rr\rldos 
c»s tols 'Ad-hvas Diod. Sic. vol. i. p. 34. 

Tevojxevwu yap bjxoKoyov^vus avxp&v /xeydKwu Kara •na.aa.v cr^eS^i/ rh\v 
oIkovixcvtjv, irXty Aiyinrrov, 5tct rty iSidryra r^s %wpas, Kal (pdopas iiriyevo- 
fi4ur]S row T€ napirwv koi irArjdovs avdpdo-rrwv, e| Aiyinrrov rhv 'Epe%0e'a KO/xlcrai, 
8to tV ffvyycveiav, alrov 7t\tj0os ds ras y A8t)vas.-— Ibid. 

§ *Av9' wv robs e3 ira66vras fiaat\ela /caTarfjacu rhv tvegylr-qv.mm. Ibid. 

c2 



12 

nent characters in Pagan history ; which though hy 
continual usage have become perfectly familiar to 
us, associated with the marvellous character they 
are made to bear, yet of their precise signification 
few can form any estimate. For example — Pro- 
metheus is promi-theuth — Menestheus, menes-theuth 
— Hippothous is hippo-tholh ; — and it is further 
evident, that by analogy each of these appellations 
is made to partake of the offices of the deity Theuth 
— and, what is more, each becomes reconcileable to 
one and the same identical personage, maintaining 
the same character, and performing the same rites, 
or exploits — namely Noah. For the addition to 
the names we have adduced, we may readily ac- 
count, if we admit the assertion of a learned author, 
that when the name of the deity of any nation 
became extinct amongst the people, which in this 
instance naturally would in the lapse of time, by 
the change of terms, language, and place; that of 
their leader was generally substituted : and in this 
case the assertion becomes remarkably verified. 
The Athenians assumed the patronymic Erech- 
theidae, from their leader Erectheus. Hence the 
Erechtheidae, or Arkites, are those who maintained 
their ancient reverence for the ark, as taken from 
the symbolical signification of the word \ and the 
Pelopidoe, or worshippers of the serpent, from 
p-el-ops, signifying serpent god* Moreover, Dio- 
dorus, speaking of the giants, says that they were 
fabled to have sprung from the earth, on account 
of the prodigious dimensions of their bodies. f And 

* Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 182. 

•f MvOoAoyovvTai o° 6i yiyavhs y-qyei/cis yeyovevaL, 5ia tt\v imrcpfiohriv rov 
Kara to auy.a fxcyddovs. 



13 

Herodotus, making mention of li is temple, says, 

'Efe^Sfl®' t« foyew®' Xeyo/xEva elv<z< v>j<k,* the temple of EreC- 

theus, who was reported to have sprung from the 
earth* The gloomy shades of a sequestered grove 
inspired the minds of men with a superstitious 
reverence for those places; and indulging in such 
reveries of imagination, it was not unnatural for 
them to place their deity where a solemn silence 
seemed to awe every object into obedience : and 
how the words came to be distorted from their 
original acceptation, may be easily accounted for by 
the same hypothesis, as that by which other words 
of collateral importance are made to appear. We 
suppose the title god to have been used primarily to 
designate a being, whose acts, &c, were in unison 
with their ideas of supernatural agency : (for here, 
by the by, we conceive a parallel of distinction may 
be drawn between Pagan and Christian writers : 
the one admit what comes within the sphere of 
their comprehension — the other admire, adore, and 
believe what they cannot comprehend:) since we 
have before observed, that every circumstance of an 
extraordinary nature was generally associated with 
the name god; so even the secret recesses of an 
almost obscure grove, operating upon the mind of 
such a people, would be held sacred as the sanc- 
tuary of the deity. The word, in an etymological 
sense, may also be rendered spirit; hence every 
thing supernatural — every ominous dream or vision 
was referred to the deity — and every individual had 
his guardian or tutelar deity, spirit, or demon : and 
in this sense dreams may be said to come from Jove. 

* Lib. viii. cap. 55. 



14 

Hence any thing* which gives us astonishment, 
though not beyond our comprehension, however 
contrary to the received acceptation, may with lin- 
gual propriety be denominated a miracle or wonder. 
While in the same sense and precisely the same ac- 
ceptation, we understand the highest effect of super- 
natural agency. The figure, though inelegant, is 
nevertheless referable to the foregoing statement. 

The Egyptians, through the light of paganism, 
had very plausible reasons for paying adoration to 
the Nile* and the solar orb, since they were the 
two grand sources from which flowed their abun- 
dance. The circumstances under which Egypt was 
placed with respect to some of the Greek colonists, 
and the great obligations which, at an after period 
of this enquiry, we shall appear to be under to this 
country, are in themselves, we presume, a sufficient 
apology for our frequent reference to Egypt. It 
was to the Hellenists that the Egyptians owed the 
chief of their improvements, for these colonists were 
in possession of that country two or three centuries 
(280 years) ; and during that time drained the 
Delta, and built many noble cities. The memory 
of this wonderful drainage is preserved in the form 
of the letter Delta (a), implying a door or opening, 
for the draining of these swamps and inhospitable 

* It was Taid>u with the Greeks. It was also the same appellation 
which was afterwards given by Moses to one of the rivers of Paradise. 
Gen. ii. 10, 13. 

Uch was a title in Egypt for a king, as Josephus observes, in a 
quotation from Manetho, in his first book against Apion. 

5 H7^was the most ancient name of that river. Tbv 5e irora^hv agx^- 
rarov tikvuvojxa ex*"' ' 0/ceai/V> '6s eVTi'EAA7?j/ts-rOKecw'<fc.,--Diod. Sic. vol. 1. 
lib. i. p. 22. edit. WesselL 

'Oyiiv et 'Okco^s.— Hesychius. 



marshes, on the sides or below the banks of the 
river. Certainly it was, in every sense, an opening 
to all the subsequent improvements in Egypt. But 
to return to the more immediate object of our 
enquiry. The belief that Egypt, Phoenicia, and 
Thrace, together with other countries in the East, 
were in a high state of cultivation and improve- 
ment,* at the time that Greece was immersed in 
ignorance and almost barbarism, as regards litera- 
ture, is, we think, pretty general . Flavius Josephus, 
with little ceremony, asserts, " that to all which re- 
gards civilization, the Greeks were but the children 
of yesterday; that their earliest pretensions to the 
use of letters, reached no farther than the time of 
Cadmus."f We gather from Clemens Alexandrinus, 
that Dionysius's account of Argos began with Ina- 
chus. Strabo's geographical work was written after 
Dion y si us was known as an historian : yet, in his 
seventh book, he states that, according to Hecataeus, 
the Milesian, barbarians inhabited Peloponnesus 
before the Greeks : and we may infer from tra- 
dition, that almost all Greece was formerly inha- 
bited by barbarians. Plutarch wrote many years 
after Dionysius. He did not confine himself to the 
strictness of history, yet he confesses that he had 
no materials for the life of Theseus. Whether the 
state of Greece, in the early ages of fable and 
tradition, were or were not a barren and uninhabited 
wild, must for ever remain a subject of conjecture. 
It appears from Sir Isaac Newton's chronology, that 

* See Potter's Grecian Antiq. vol. ii. p. 56. 

-f- Tlegl jxkv yag 'AgKadcov ri 5e? \4yeiv avxowlwv agxai6rrjTa' /j.6\ts yap 
olroi Kal fjLtra rafya ypa^<n.<Tiv 4iraidcvdij<rav ;— Joseph, contra Apion. lib. i. 
cap. 4. 



16 

Argos was the first place, or one of the first places, 
in which the Egyptians planted a colony, and under 
the command of Inachns or Phoroneus, A.c. 1080. 
And the Pelasgi* are supposed to have heen the early 
inhabitants of Greece : they are called a tribe of 
Scythians, who, leaving- their deserts, settled in 
Thrace and Thessaly. From them Strabof tells 
us the Peloponnesus was called Pelasgia. The 
same assertion is made by Dionysius.J It would 
appear from this, that some relationship must exist 
between the Pelasgi and Pelopidae ; else the evi- 
dence of the two historians will be in direct oppo- 
sition to the truth, we have been endeavouring to 
extract from the fabulous accounts given us of 
Pelops : but we hope that, in the course of this 
enquiry, it will be made clear that the account 
given us of both characters, may be traced to the 
former source; for Hellas is given by Strabo§ as 
the part to which they emigrated. The same 
writer has also informed us, that they were the 
most ancient race of men who established any 
dynasty in Hellas. 

Now, taking the opinions of these authors as 
authority, the result of a little enquiry will attach 
some importance to the Greek language. Dr. Par- 
sons, || in his Remains of Japhet, has urged the 
following argument as a proof that the confusion 
of language was not general : " Nor is it in any 



• The Pelasgi are termed by Strabo, Geog. lib. ix. a wandering people. 
UeXaayol Sia tt\v i:\avi\v. 
•f- Lib. v. cap. 22. Stephanus Byzantius states the same. 
% Lib. L cap. 17. 

§ Twv irepl tV 'EAAaSa SwareusavT W apx.a16Ta.T01,— Strabo. Geog. lib. vii. 
|| Vide page 16. 



17 

wise probable, that after one hundred years, wherein 
an innumerable offspring' must have been produced, 
there was any necessity in the nature of the thing-, 
for every individual of the seed of Noah to be 
present at the confusion of tongues ; or that all 
these people everywhere settled during* that space 
of time, should quit their several dominions, from 
remote places on the opposite sides of Armenia, and 
come into that spot to be subject to the confusion. 
Certainly this would be an impediment and inter- 
ruption to the progress they were to make upon the 
earth; which would be repugnant to the visible 
scope and design of Providence, for promoting 
their increase and welfare. " The Cuthites are 
supposed to have been the objects of divine ven- 
geance at the dispersion, consequently they were 
amongst the dispersed. They are exhibited to us 
as monsters of wickedness. By their actions, &c, 
they throw considerable light on the Titan history. 
In them are recognised the Heraclidae, who colo- 
nised some parts of Greece. One of the titles 
assigned them was Orus, and the rites of Hercules 
were established amongst them : and both Orus and 
Hercules were worshipped as deities; and what is 
more, Herodotus informs us they were the principal 
gods in Egypt.* The Cuthites were the Arcades, 
Argivi, Danaidse, &c. ; and the Pelopidee (who did 
not adhere to the religion of the ark) were distin- 
guished by the titles, Iones, Arcades, Argivi, and 
Danaidse. Thus a little confusion seems to exist in 
these two accounts; the Pelopida?, who are placed 

* Herod, lib. ii. cap. 144, 115. 

D 



18 

in contradistinction to the Arkites or Javanites, and 
the Danaida?, (from Danaiis, a ship, and who carried 
a ship in procession,) and the I ones, and synonymous 
with the Hellenes; and they must have been Ar- 
kites, from the circumstance of Helen, son of Deu- 
calion, being* an Arkite, and who gave name to the 
colonists. It will not be easy to reconcile this 
account, unless we admit the probability, that both 
the Pelopidse and Cuthites might sometimes be 
designated by the same patriarchal name — that of 
Danaides, Arcades, or Iones. Although having 
apostatized, they did not assume either the one or 
the other. Peleg was the founder of the Hebrew 
nation; and from his being the son of Heber, who 
preserved the Adamic language in consequence of 
his having taken no part in the building of Babel, 
the Hebrews argue the purity and antiquity of 
their language. Just upon the same supposition, 
it will appear that the Greeks may argue a like 
antiquity. Now, from the national character of 
the Pelasgi, we have no evidence for placing them 
as one and the same people with the posterity of 
Heber : yet such is the obscurity of these ages, 
and the consequent inconvenience arising to any 
analysis of their history, that a certain learned 
writer upon the Literary Antiquities of Greece, has 
felt himself necessitated to adopt another hypo- 
thesis, and to maintain, " that the posterity of Peleg 
were confederates at Babel ; and that while one 
branch only remained upon the unhallowed terri- 
tory of Chaldaea, the others were dispersed into 
countries far removed." 

An assertion such as this f utilizes every enquiry, 



19 

and plunges us again into the pathless plains of 
supposition. Now, while the learned of other 
countries can give us no information as to the 
first peopling of Greece, much information may be 
elicited from the pages of her own writers. It 
would appear, from the accounts given us by Hero- 
dotus, that the Pelasgi migrated in great hordes 
into Greece : and he states that the Ionians were 
Pelasgi, and the people of Attica a Pelasgic race. 
He also includes the Dorians, Arcadians, jEolians, 
and the whole of the Peloponnesus. 

Alwood seems to resist the authority, with which 
other authors have made the Helladians the first 
settlers in Greece, and gives preference to that of 
the Pelasgi. What importance may be attached to 
this difference, if it be difference, of opinion, will 
be apparent from a recurrence to the claims of each 
people. Hellas* was an ancient name of Thessaly, 
and generally applied to the countries, Acarnania, 
Attica, iEtolia, Doris, Locris, Phocis, and, lastly, 
Bceotia ; from the last-mentioned of which places, 
history informs us, came Cadmus. Now the name 
Pelasgi af was generally applied to every country 
or province in Greece, but particularly the southern 
parts or the Peloponnesus. By this account, the 
countries are identified by one and the same name : 
the character of each, and the account which we 
have received concerning them, are verbatim the 
same, and leave little doubt upon the mind as to 
their being synonymous. Upon this supposition, 
we have the Pelasgi or Helladians settled in Greece, 

* Plin. iv. 7. Strabo. viii. 
t Strabo, v. Herodot. lib. i. Virg. iEn. i. 

d2 



20 

and colon isi ng ,\ great part of that country. This 
being admitted, the Dorian is the first feature 
which tjie language is supposed to have taken, in 
a course of refinement, or rather improvement, 
from that of their invaders : and some credibility 
may be attached to this statement, when we consider 
that with the poets, the Doric reed was but another 
term for the rhapsody of a rustic bard. The 
Dorians* are, therefore, handed down to us as the 
first who cultivated the language, or who made an 
attempt at refinement ; and how far they may have 
succeeded withal, may be judged by a comparison 
with that of other states. The compliment which 
the Greek writers have continually paid them, 
which, by the by, abating nothing of the praise 
due thereto for its antiquity, is but a woful acknow- 
ledgment for the pains that country is represented 
as having taken, in order to divest themselves of 
some of the barbarisms of their Pelasgian invaders. 
However, it is but doing justice to each state to 
suppose, that it became possessed of a language 
about the same period of time as that which is as- 
signed to the others: and in honour to the Dorians, 
they first betrayed a pride, which afterwards became 
a national feature; or perhaps taste, to throw off 
or discountenance a people from whom they had 
their origin. Euripides observes that the Danaidae 
were first called Pelasgi ;f Herodotus, the inha- 
bitants of Attica J were, together with the Ionians 

* See Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 96. 
■f TleKatry tanks wvofiavficuovs rb vplu 



Aava&s. 



And in another place — 

Ylp&Tov Tle\a<ryol, Aavcrftiai rk SevrepQv. 
X Tb 'ATTinbv iGvos neKao-yucdv,— .Herodot. lib. i. cap. 57. 



21 

and yEolians.* Dionysius of Halicarnassus says the 
same of the Arcadians.f They were also called 
Cranean Pelasgi, from an ancient king Cranaiis, 
who succeeded CecropsJ in the government, and 



• AioAees 8e ■ ■ TOiraAcu Ka\e6[xevoi Tl€\ao~yoL~— Herodot. 

lib. vii. cap. 95. 

•f- UeKaayovs dveKadcv 'AgicdSas Dionys. Halicarn. lib. i. cap. 10. 

t The line of the descent of the Athenian kings, according to 
Alwood's chronology. Vide page 231. 





Rf(l))l€$» 


Years they 


Yean before the 






reigned. 


Olympiads. 


1. 


Cecrops I.* 


56 


780 


2. 


Cranaiis. 


9 


724 


3. 


Amphictyon. 


10 


715 


4. 


Erichthonius. 


50 


705 


5. 


Pandion I. 


40 


655 


6. 


Erechtheus. 


50 


615 


7. 


Cecrops II. 


40 


565 


8. 


Pandion II. 


25 


525 


9. 


Egeus. 
Theseus. 


48 


500 


10. 


30 


452 


11. 


Mnestheusf 


23 


422 


12. 


Demophobn. 


33 


399 


13. 


Oxynthes. 


12 


366 


14. 


Aphydas. 


1 


354 


15. 


Thymcetes, or ) 
Thymedas. J 


8 


353 


16. 


Melanthus. 


37 


345 


17. 


Codrus. 


21 


308 



Creon is the first archon concerning whom we have any information : 
and he is said to have governed Athens in the first year of the twenty- 
fourth Olympiad, that is, 684 years a. c. It appears, therefore, that 



* Cecrops literally signifies ca-cur-ops, the temple of the supreme Ops, or serpent 
god.— Alwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 2591. 

t Mnestheus is the same with Menestheus ; so it appears from Virgil : 
• < i ' Lyrnessius Acmon, 

Nee Clytio genitore minor, nee fratre Menestheo. 

Virg. iEn. lib. x. ver. 128. 

Affuit et Mnestheus, quem pulsi pristina Tumi 
Aggere murorum sublimem gloria tolli$. 

Ibid. ver. 14a 
Menestheus is literally menes-theuth. Menes was the first lawgiver amongst theEgyp- 
tians, and the first who improved their mode qt living.-iCoasuU piod. Sic vol. i. p. S3. 



Again: 



22 

reigned nine years, A. c. 1497. That the lan- 
guage of the Pelasgi must have undergone consi- 
derable change, is evident from a few inscriptions on 
monuments of a very ancient date, (says Dunbar.) 
Herodotus, perceiving no connexion between the 
language of his time and that of the Pelasgi, 
thought theirs barbarous : accordingly he distin- 
guished them into two tribes — the one he deno- 
minates Pelasgians,* the other Hellenes :f and it 
may be here observed, that the sense in which he 
makes use of the term barbarous, is the same with 
that of all classical writers, merely as a distinction 
for those people who, being foreigners, differed in 
the forms of speech, &c, common to their own 
nation. Indeed, in this sense it is understood by 



between Creon and Codrus, who was the last king of Athens, an 
interval of time was supposed to have elapsed of thirty-seven years. 
In what manner then was this space filled up ? Or, what were the 
laws, the arts, and manners of the Athenians during this period ? 
To these queries we are only answered, by being desired to look at 
the following list of archons, who superseded the royal authority in 
Attica :— 





Names. 


Years they 
reigned. 


1. 


Medon. 


20 


2. 


Acastus. 


36 


3. 


Archippus. 


19 


4. 


Thersippus. 


41 


5. 


Phorbas. 


30 


6. 


Megacles. 


28 


7. 


Diagnetus. 


25 


8. 


Phsereclus. 


19 


9. 


Ariphron. 


20 


10. 


Thespiceus. 


27 


11. 


Agamnestor. 
jEschylus. 


17 


12. 


23 


13. 


Alcmaeon. 


2 



• "Efryos ne\a<r7iK&/.— Herodot. i. 57. t "£&"« 'EAAipwcA'.— .Ibid. 



23 

Hesychius.* The Egyptians! had precisely the 
same conceit. ThucydidesJ informs us that the 
Greeks received the name/'EA^fj from "exxw, the son 
of Deucalion, they being then the reigning* people. 
Dr. Potter makes precisely the same remark, and 
adds, " who putting himself, as was supposed/ at 
the head of a confederacy of the Pelasgi, to repel 
the invasion of strangers, gave to the people who 
composed it his own name. His sons and grand- 
sons, by conducting the overflowing population of 
the country to other places, were honoured by their 
adherents with the assumption of their respective 
names. Thus the inhabitants of Greece, whether 
they .went by the names of Pelasgi or Hellenes, or 
were called iEolians, Dorians, Ionians, andAchaians, 
were all sprung from the same stock, and had one 
common language, varying in progress of time ac- 
cording to the pursuits of the different tribes; their 
intercourse with one another and with foreigners, 
and their improvement in the arts and sciences. 

Homer confines the term to a tribe inhabiting 
Thessaly. He specially proves this — for though 
born long after the siege of Troy,§ he no where 
gives this name to all, nor indeed to any but those 
who came with Achilles from Phthios, who were 
originally Hellenes. He calls them, in his poems, 

* BapPapia-fibs irapdhuos SidheKros. — Hesych. Lex. 

•f* Bagfidpes 5e ttdvTos oi AlfMiot /caAeoutn rovs fii\ <r<pi 6fioy\(&(r<r8S.—m 
Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 158. 

$ Thucyd. lib. i. cap. 3. 

§ TeK/iTjgitot 8e ixd\ia1a "On-r)p&, says Thucydides, rroKKco yap varegov 
€Tt Kal rwv TpcoiKwu yevdfievos, ouSa/xov res l-vfiiravlas wvSfjiaffei/, ouS' &\\ovs, 
^ t&s /j.eT 'AxtAAews 4k rrjs QOu&liHos, o'faep Kal Trgu>ht' / E\\r)V€S 9j<rav. Aava&s 
8e iv toTs iirtffi, Kal 'Agyclovs, Kal 'Axcuobs wanaKci. 



24 

Danai, Argives,and Achaians ; and these very people 
are recognised by Dr. Stillingfleet* in the Cuthites 
and Pelasgi, and under the general title of Am- 
monians : and if they were not of the immediate 
posterity of Ham, they were nevertheless confe- 
derates with them in their rebellion against Heaven : 
they were ejected from the same habitations at the 
time of the dispersion : they were in principles and 
practice as persons similarly educated, as members 
" of the same great family.' ' This only corroborates 
a former assertion ; and from this statement it will 
not be difficult to reconcile the Aborigines of Greece 
with the wandering Pelasgi.f 

Now, from the intermixture of foreigners who 
spoke a different language, and perhaps more re- 
fined — from a general intercourse, and a constant 
endeavour to harmonize the language, by adding 
dependant terminations to many vocables, the lan- 
guage certainly did undergo considerable change. 
The discordance noticed by Herodotus, is accounted 
for by the late Mr. Pinkerton. " The Greek lan- 
guage," says he, " had been thrown into a ferment 
by a slight mixture of Phoenician, and had been 
purified by all the art and attention of the wisest 
men in the world. It was the Pelasgic refined, 
just as the English is the Saxon refined.' ' These 
scattered fragments of Pelasgi must not then be 
confounded with the latter Greeks; being only 
remnants of old colonies expelled from Italy, or 

* Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae, book iii. 5th edit. 

t The Pelasgi of profane history, and the Ammonites of Scripture, 
are still to be found in the gipsies ; the original Druids and Dervishes, 
Dryads and Fauni, Fays and Fairies, Fakirs and Brownies. 



25 

late migrations of small parties from Thrace, which 
we have before termed the native country of the 
Pelasgi : and that they retained their primitive 
barbarous speech and manners, was a necessary 
consequence of their late arrival from remote and 
uncultivated regions. The basis of the Greek lan- 
guage is Ammonian; who were the strenuous 
supporters of the Arkite worship, and the impious 
partakers in the Ammonian apostasy. There seems 
to exist a striking analogy between the language of 
Greece, and that of all the northern parts of Europe, 
where the effect of war has been least felt ', in fact 
many words still remain, which bear a corresponding 
analysis to those of the oriental languages, and 
which are thought to approach nearer the primitive 
language than any other. An instance or two in 
favour of this hypothesis may be here adduced. 
Invert the Greek letters from left to right, according 
to the Phoenician and Hebrew manner, and they 
are nearly the same in characters, as also in name. 
The Celtic languages differ from those of Greece 
and Rome, in having no cases to their nouns, nor 
passive verbs, in the common use of the auxiliary 
verbs, and likewise in many other minor points. 

The mode of writing to which we have referred, 
observes Dr. Potter, appears originally to have 
obtained amongst the Greeks. Afterwards they 
adopted a new method, of writing the lines alter- 
nately from right to left and vice versa, which was 
called boustrophedon, or writing after the manner in 
which oxen plough the ground. The progress of 
writing amongst the ancient Greeks appears to have 
been remarkably slow, since we have no trace of 

E 



•20 

any prose writer prior to the time of Cyrus the 
Elder, 559 A. c. : and if it really was introduced 
by Cadmus, we become involved in a temporary 
embarrassment. Cadmus is said to have brought 
twenty-two letters into Greece, while the Greeks 
are known to have made use of no more than sixteen, 
prior to the siege of Troy : but to rectify this seeming 
discordance, it may be supposed, that though the 
Greeks adopted some of the letters, they did not use 
the language of the Phoenicians; but rather em- 
ployed some of their alphabet, merely to express 
some sounds of which the poverty of their own 
language would not admit. But then it may be 
questioned, whether, according to this hypothesis, 
we are not giving too much discrimination to a 
people, as yet but few degrees removed from a state 
of actual barbarism. 

The observation which is made by Mr. Dunbar, 
in his Affinity of the Greek and Latin Languages, 
may serve us in this emergency. " The Greeks," 
says this author, " were more numerous than their 
respective invaders, and that the current language 
of the country seems ultimately to have prevailed 
in every quarter." And, in this instance, the state- 
ment of Mr. Pinkerton, that the language had been 
thrown into a ferment, is made evident. And He- 
rodotus, before it claimed the attention of those 
who undertook to purify it, denounced it barbarous. 
If we"might be allowed a moment's digression from 
the present advanced stage of this subject, and 
offer a single remark upon the early accounts given 
us of Cadmus, we shall find that the different stages 
which the language took, were but the effect of 



27 

co-operative influence: and although the birth of 
letters has no professed claim to onr attention in 
this Enquiry, nevertheless, a slight allusion here, 
since it is not directly foreign to our subject, might 
tend to elucidate the fact, that Greece is under high 
obligations to Egypt. 



CHAP. II. 

THE FORMATION OF LETTERS AS WE HAVE THEM- 
CADMUS—THE CULTIVATION OF THE LANGUAGE 
UP TO THE PERIOD OF A REGULAR COMPOSITION. 

Memnon, a king of the Ethiopians or Egyptians, 
is represented as the inventor of letters, 1822 A. c. — 
and observe, they were thence carried into Phoe- 
nicia, and formed into a language or alphabet 
by Cadmus ; and from thence he took them into 
Greece. And upon this point we are not without 
authority from Herodotus, who says, " the Phoeni- 
cians themselves, who came with Cadmus, brought 
learning into Greece, and also letters, for they were 
not amongst the Greeks before, we are disposed to 
think."* He afterwards adds, " with the tone they 
also changed the form of the letters, "f And from 
a statement of the same historian, it appears that 
the Ionians changed a little the form of the Phoe- 
nician letters. J Now, some writers have endea- 



* Vide Herodot. lib. v. cap. 58. Of Se Qoivtices eroi oi ovv Kd.8fj.ci> cwn- 

tcSfxevoi, ecrfiyayov StSaavcaAta is robs "EWrjvas, Kal d^j Kal ypdfj.iJ.al 'a, 

ovk i6vra irplv "E\Xr](ri, ws efj.ol SoKtet. 

■f Me7a 5e, %p6vov irpo(saivovr(&>, 'djxa rrj (puvrj fisrsfSaXov Kal rbv pvdfxbv 
r<2v ypafxfxdlwv. 

X "leaves oi irapaXafiSvres 5i5ax*j napa rwv tyomtccvv tcc ypdfj.fj.a1a, fJ.erafip'vO- 
nicravUs (Ttpwv b\iyu, ixp^vlo. 

E 2 



28 

toured to show that Cadmus came originally from 
Egypt, and that the letters he introduced, must 
therefore have been the Egyptian, and not the 
Phoenician. In conclusion, we will just transcribe 
a passage of Dunbar, and then return to the order 
of our Enquiry. It is to this effect : " The accounts 
we have of Cadmus are too vague to rest much 
upon : for though his followers are said to have 
consisted partly of Egyptians and partly of Phoe- 
nicians, it is not necessary that he should have come 
from the country of the former ; as in those times 
bands of adventurers from Egypt might sail to 
Phoenicia in the first instance, as to a place with 
which a regular intercourse was maintained, and 
might there join themselves to Cadmus in search 
of new settlements.* Now, to assign a date for 
the foundation of Thebes, (an event which, in this 
sense, seems rightly associated with the arrival of 
our literary hero in Greece,) would be using a 
licence not warranted by authority from any his- 
torian. We might, in this place, digress into 
theory, and detail opinions, but we will let one 
quotation from an eminent historian suffice, which 
purports that the ancients supposed the building of 
Thebes to be hidden in great antiquity .f The first 
efforts which every nation has made in the region 
of letters, have been steps to verse ; for poetry is 
generally allowed to have been the style in which 
every people, having partially thrown off the fetters 
of barbarism, betrayed a taste for letters ; whether 

* Vide Dunbar's Affinity of the Greek and Latin Languages, p. 7. 

-|- 'AfupurfiriTe'tTcu 877 kTktiv ttjs 7roAea>s TavrrfS ov fxdvov irapa roTs trvyyga- 
tpevcriv, dAAa Kal irapd avrois tois k<xt Atywrhv Uptvcri— .Lib. i. cap. 15. 



&9 

celebrating the ovations of their leaders, or the 
exploits of their gods. The earliest authors have 
invariably been rhapsodists or poets; the subjects 
of their poems turn for the most part upon theology 
and natural history : and since the Greeks derived 
so much of their knowledge from Egypt, it may 
not be wondered at that their writings were so 
frequently of a religious character. That the lan- 
guage was in a state of cultivation, and that Greece 
had assumed unto herself some character in that 
point of view, is fully evidenced in the writings of 
several authors prior to the famous era of the Iliad 
and Odyssey ; and this opinion is without objection, 
except by those who estimate these writings rather 
as miraculous achievements, than produced by the 
improved powers of a great mind.* The early 
poets, whose names are handed down to us, were 
not natives of Greece, but of Thrace or Asia Minor. 
"The poems of Thamyris, Linus, Orpheus, Musaeus, 
Eumolpus, of Thrace, and of Alcmon, the Lycian, 
were greatly admired," says Potter, " by the most 
refined and intelligent of the Greeks at a late period 
of their history. Homer,f in his immortal works, 
has commemorated the merit of the former." 

It is highly desirable that some date had or could 
be fixed, for the precise period of two prominent 
events in history, the era of which has ever been 
contested, never determined. 1. The expedition of 
the Argonauts, who, as fable informs us, sailed in 
quest of the golden fleece, which in fact was but 

* Vide Dr. Potter's Lit. Antiq. of the States of Greece, p. 58. 

•J- 'Av16/A€i/at Odfivpiu rbv ®pr\'iKa iravvav doidrjs, 

Olx*h-iyQw i6vra, irap Evpvra Oi'xaA-"?®-'. 

Iliad. £' 595, 596. 



30 

symbolical of a book covered with parchment, 
which taught the use of making", or perhaps rather 
performing, some operation upon gold ; and which 
event, according to the Tables, is fixed 1263, A. c. 
2. The siege of Troy, which, as the poet sings, was 
defended by Neptune, merely in consequence of 
the material composing" its walls being" a conglo- 
merate of sea-shells. About 907 a.c. 



CHAP. III. 

LYRIC POETRY. 

< 

Lyric, or lyral poetry, was that species of verse 
which was in use in the earliest period of musical 
rhapsody. As it was the most natural of all metres, 
so it was by far the sweetest and most agreeable. 
Its rise may be dated in their very earliest pre- 
tensions to taste. It was the messenger of melody, 
and the gently flowing strain of passion — as it ele- 
vated the soul, so it checked the approach of in- 
trusive bitterness — and was the twin-daughter of 
Reason and Sympathy. Music was made use of by 
the ancients, to supply that absence of words which 
the sentiments of the poet might demand ; and 
more nicely to express those feelings which this 
existing poverty might tend to degenerate. This 
was the character of lyral composition in its more 
excellent period of cultivation, when the sweet- 
singer of Israel strung its hallowed cords to play 
the finer sensations of the mind: and from this 
simple detail, we may infer the probability of the 
generally received opinion, as to the claims which 



:31 

poetry may make upon every nation at the dawn 
of letters amongst the people. The Chaldeean, the 
Hebrew, and all the Asiatic records, are full of 
hymns composed at a very early period for the pur- 
poses of devotion. The spontaneous effusions of 
nature, unshackled by the fetters of rule and mea- 
surement, are much more likely to give birth to 
generous sentiments and animated expressions, than 
the nicely connected syllables of the highly finished 
epic. Ease and beauty are the grateful tribute of 
nature — elegance and grandeur the gaudy trappings 
and acquirements of art. Under the latter may be 
characterized the epic poem, and the former the 
lyric ode. Thus the one does not wear the same 
restraints to which the other is subject : yet not- 
withstanding this, the lyral composition ought to 
embrace but one object, with which all the illus- 
trations and allusions ought to be connected, either 
closely or more remotely. 

Mr. Dunbar has divided the lyral ode into four 
species of composition. 1. Sacred odes or hymns, 
addressed to the deity, or composed on religious 
occasions. 2. Heroic odes, in which the actions and 
exploits of great men were celebrated. 3. Philo- 
sophical, or moral odes, whose character should be 
temperate, dignified, and elegant. 4. Gay and 
amorous odes, in which elegance, smoothness, hu- 
mour, and gaiety ought to prevail. 

Of the first class, no earlier examples have come 
down to us, than those which we meet with in the 
occasional odes scattered in the five books of Moses ; 
and a few others prior to the time of David, yet 
subsequent to that of the Hebrew lawgiver. 



32 



THE NATURE OF THE GREEK ODE. 

The ancients framed two large stanzas, and one 
less. The first of these they called strophe, singing* 
it on their festivals at the altars of the gods, dancing 
at the same time; the second they called antistrophe, 
in which they inverted the dance. The less stanza 
was named the epode, which they sung standing 
still. By the strophe, they wished to denote the 
motion of the higher sphere; by the antistrophe 
that of the planets ; and the epode the fixed station 
and repose of the earth. 

ALCtEUS, stesichorus, and simonides. 

Of these writers little is handed down to us 
beyond their names, and a few fragments of their 
works. Alcseus was a native of Mitylene, and 
flourished about 600, B. c. His name is preserved 
in a species of verse called after him Alcaic metre. 
This courted the attention of the poetess Sappho, 
who was also his rival in the sweetness of their 
verse. Stesichorus contributed his part to the im- 
provement which was gradually going on, in the 
rude accomplishments of that period. He raised 
the character of music and dancing, and was him- 
self as sweet a poet as the Doric dialect of that 
period would admit. He is said to have been the 
first who wrote an epithalamium, or nuptial song, 
and flourished 556, B. c. Simonides wrote some 
few years subsequent to the two preceding poets. 
He was a native of Cos, one of the Cyclades islands, 
lying off the coast of Asia — now Zia. As the cul- 



33 

tivation of the Greek language became more ex- 
tended, so the talents of Simonides possessed a wider 
range; and much to the credit of our poet it is, 
that he appears to have been by far the most accom- 
plished writer of his time. He did not confine 
himself to the cultivation of one particular muse, 
but with happy success addressed in turn the nine. 
The Lamentation of Danae, a beautiful fragment of 
his, is still extant. He flourished about 537 b. c. 



ANACREON. 

Anacreon was a native of Teos, in Ionia, and 
flourished about 533 B.C. He was a poet of pecu- 
liar merit in lyric metre, but of intemperate and 
dissolute habits. He sung the delights of Venus 
and the pleasures of the vine, with a sensibility 
which made them perfectly his own. In his de- 
scription of the features, he is strikingly happy ; 
hence the portrait which he draws of " his absent 
mistress.' 7 * Death, which is at all times terrifying 
to the thoughts of a voluptuary, to Anacreon was a 
perfect tyrant — ever willing to dissipate care, and 
" drain the Eoian tribute while it sparkles in the 
cup." He exclaims, " When I drink wine, this is 
alone gain to me — this taking I will bear away : 
for to die is common to all men." He is said to 
have been of illustrious ancestry, and Plato affirms 
that he was a descendant of Codrus. He was 
deeply enamoured of a boy, whom he introduces 
in his odes, by the name and under the character of 
Bathyllus. The whole of one short odef he has 

* Ode taf. 28. f Ode «£'. 22. 



34 

addressed to this youth. The ancient poets, whose 
morals for the most part turned upon the pivot of 
sensual or present enjoyment, would not unfre- 
quently introduce mortality into their compositions; 
not, by the way, for the purpose of diminishing 
the pleasures of life, but by the contrast, to enhance 
the enjoyment of the present hour. 

A few selections from his odes will serve to evi- 
dence the principles of the poet. His first ode, 
after the manner of poets in general, opens with an 
address to the genius of his Lyre. 

I.* 

ON HIS LYRE. 

Fain would I tell of the sons of Atreus; I wish also to sing 
of Cadmus: but my Lyre will with its strings tune only love. 
Awhile ago I changed the strings, and the whole Lyre ; and I 
indeed was singing the labours of Hercules; but the Lyre 
re-echoed love. Henceforth, then, farewell heroes ! for my 
Lyre sings love alone. 

IH.f 

ON CUPID. 

Once at the hour of midnight, just when the Bear is turning 
at the hand of Bootes, and all the tribes of speech-gifted men, 
worn down by labour, lie sleeping; then Cupid, approaching, 

A'.* 
EIS ATPAN. 
©eAow \4yeiv 'ArpeiSay, 
0eAa> 8e KaSfiov 6Seiu. 
'H fidpGiTos 8e X0£>8ais, K. t. A. 

r'.f 

EIZ EPHTA. 
MeffovvKliois tto& &pais, 

Kara X e M? a T V Bowtov, k. t. \, 



knocked at the fastenings of my doors. " Who," said 1, " batters 
my doors ? you will interrupt my dreams." But Cupid says, 
" Open, fear not, I am but an infant. I am all wet too, and 
have gone astray through the moonless night." Hearing these 
things, 1 pitied him ; and having quickly lighted up my lamp, 
I opened the door, and saw indeed an infant, bearing a bow, 
and also wings and a quiver. And having seated him at the 
hearth, I warmed his hands in mine; and wrung from his hair 
the humid water. But he, when cold forsook him, says, " Come, 
let us try now, if this bow of mine is injured from the wetness 
of the string." Then he bends it, and strikes me through the 
midst of the liver, like a gadfly : then he springs up with a 
loud laugh," Congratulate me, mine host," said he; "my bow 
is quite sound indeed, but you will suffer pain at the heart." 

XII.* 

ON A SWALLOW. 

What do you wish me to do for you ? what, O chattering 
Swallow ? Seizing, shall I clip your light wings ? Are you 
willing ? Or shall I rather cut off your tongue from within, 
as Tereus did ? Wherefore did you carry off Bathyllus from 
my pleasant dreams, by your morning notes ? 

XXIII.f 

ON GOLD. 

If, indeed, abundance of Gold prolonged life to mortals, I 
anxiously would grasp it firmly; that if Death should come, 
he might take something and begone. But since to purchase 
life is not allowed to mortals, why do I lament in vain ? Why 
then do I send forth groans ? For if death is decreed by Fate, 

IB'.* 
EI2 XEAIAONA. 
Ti ffoi, Octets, irotna'w, 
Ti, kwtIAt) xeA.i8<£j/ ; k. t. A. 

Kr'f 
EI2 XPYSON. 
'O TI\Stos eXyz XP V(T ^ 
Tb tfju iraprjye Optjtois, 
'EKagripev (pv\a.Tlwv' K.r.K. 

F2 



3(5 

what can Gold profit mc ? Be it mine to drink ! and, quaffing 
sweet wine, to hold converse with my friends ; and pleasantly 
reclining to propitiate the goddess of love. 

XXV* 

ON HIMSELF. 

When I drink wine, cares sleep ! What are griefs and cares 
to me ? I must needs die, though I desire it not. Why then 
do 1 let life run to waste ? Let us then drink wine, the gift of 
the fair Lyaeus : for while we drink, cares sleep. 

PINDAR— A. C. 435. 

The bold and exalted genius of Pindar was 
encouraged and heightened by the honours he re- 
ceived from the champions and princes of his age; 
and his conversation with the heroes qualified him 
to sing their praises with more advantage. At the 
Olympic games, the garland of the victor was 
esteemed at a low rate, if not crowned with the 
never-fading laurel of his immortal song. In an 
age by no means wanting in honourable patronage, 
Pindar was the friend of Hiero : nor did it detract 
from the praise of the noble king of Syracuse, that 
Attica, the most powerful and polite of all the states 
of Greece, felt herself indebted to our poet for the 
honour conferred upon their city in a single line of 
his to its praise. He was decreed the honour of a 
statue, and the favour of his eulogy Athens herself 
publicly acknowledged. No one was ever more ho- 
noured and admired while living than Pindar, as 

KE\* 

Ei5 'eatton. 

"Orau Tiivw rhv oluov, 
EuSbctip al fj.4pifj.yai. k, t. A, 



87 

no one had a more illustrious libation poured upon 
his ashes. Pausanias tells us, that the character of 
the poet was really and truly consecrated in his 
person by the god of poets himself, who was pleased, 
by an express oracle, to order the inhabitants of 
Delphi to set apart for Pindar, one-half of the 
firstfruit offerings brought by the religious to his 
shrine; and to allow him a place in his temple, 
where, in an iron chair, he was used to sit, and sing 
his hymns in honour of that god. This chair was 
remaining in the time of Pausanias, several centuries 
after, to whom it was shown, as a relic not un- 
worthy of the sanctity and magnificence of that 
holy place. 

Unhappily for us and likewise for Pindar, those 
parts of his works which procured for him those 
extraordinary testimonies from the gods, (or from 
mortals rather, who, by the invention of these fables, 
meant only to express the high opinion they enter- 
tained of this great poet,) are all lost. I mean his 
hymns to the several deities of the heathen world. 
And even of those writings to which his less ex- 
travagant, but more serious and more lasting glory 
is owing, only the least, and, according to some 
people, the worst part is now remaining. These 
are his odes inscribed to the conquerors in the four 
sacred games of Greece. By these odes, therefore, 
are we now left to judge of the merit of Pindar, as 
they are the only living evidences of his character. 

The prejudices which have arisen against Pindar, 
are rather to be ascribed to the want of skill and 
ability in the translators of his odes, than to any 
peculiar culpability in the original. Mr. Cowley, 



38 

whose wit and force of expression first brought 
them into repute, has placed himself before all the 
rest in aiming at Pindaric fire. But in compliment 
to our poet, the learned Dr. West has observed, that 
if any modern copyist has resembled them, it is only 
as it is expressed by the Italian word caricatura, a 
monstrous and distorted likeness. 

There are two faults pointed out by Mr. Congreve, 
in his preface to two odes from the original of 
Pindar, into which the translators of these odes 
have generally fallen. The words run thus : " The 
character of these late Pindarics is a bundle of 
rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like 
parcel of irregular stanzas, which also consist of 
such another complication of disproportioned, un- 
certain, and perplexed verses and rhymes. And I 
appeal to any reader, if this is not the condition in 
which these titular odes appeared. On the contrary, 
(adds he) there is nothing more regular than the 
odes of Pindar, both as to the exact observation of 
the measures and numbers of his stanzas and verses, 
and the perpetual coherence of his thoughts. For 
though his digressions are frequent, and his tran- 
sitions sudden, yet is there ever some secret con- 
nexion, which, though not always appearing to the 
eye, never fails to communicate itself to the under- 
standing of the reader." 

Among the many charges brought against Pindar, 
three may be selected as possessing some claim to 
our attention, not because they are too obstinate 
to be refuted, but because they are the likeliest 
of any others to be urged. The first is, that of 
irregularity in point of metre. 



39 

Now, it only requires the reader to be but ac- 
quainted with the nature and construction of a 
Greek ode, to see the futility of any reasonable 
objection on this head. The subject of Pindar's 
odes, at least of those which we possess, are gene- 
rally eulogies sung in honour of great men, heroes 
or princes ; as such they claim an adulatory licence, 
which, on the score of compliment, the genius 
of the song will forgive. Yet in this instance no 
liberty is taken with the metre, but only by a pleasing 
variation affects the arrangement of the subject. 
Thus, instead of wearying his muse with a long 
and insipid detail of the praises of his hero, and 
dwelling throughout the whole poem upon the in- 
dividual excellences of the man, the poet would 
digress ; and, in order to give his poem due length, 
have recourse to other circumstances, arising from 
the family or country of the conqueror, from the 
games in which he had come off victorious, or from 
the particular deities who had any relation to the 
occasion, or in whose temple the ode was intended 
to be sung. These and many other particulars, 
which would present themselves to an attentive 
observer, gave hints to the poet, and naturally in- 
duced new ideas, which, when expressed, would 
evidently at this distance of time and place, appear 
both extravagant and unaccountable. " Upon the 
whole," observes Dr. West, " I am persuaded that, 
whoever will consider the odes of Pindar with 
regard to the manners and customs of the age in 
which they were written, the occasions which gave 
birth to them, and the places in which they were 
intended to be recited, will find little reason to 



10 

censure Pindar for want of order and regularity in 
the plans of his compositions. On the contrary, 
perhaps he will be inclined to admire him for 
raising- so many beauties from such trivial hints, 
and for kindling, as he sometimes does, so great a 
flame from a single spark, and with so little fuel. 

There is still another prejudice which has been 
urged against Pindar's odes, which exists in a wrong 
idea formed by those who are not thoroughly ac- 
quainted with ancient history, of the personages to 
whom his poems were principally addressed ; and 
may be induced to think meanly of the odes, in con- 
sequence of an improper estimation they may have 
put upon the characters of the conquerors and the 
champions at the Grecian games. 

The characteristic beauties of Pindar are, observes 
a translator of his odes, a poetical imagination, a 
warm and enthusiastic genius, a bold and figurative 
expression, and a concise and sententious style. 
And the character of the poet may be gathered 
from the very faults imputed to him ; which are 
no other than the excess of very great and ac- 
knowledged beauties : and so free is he from any 
thing like far-fetched thoughts, that it is doubtful 
whether even a single antithesis exists in all 
his odes. 

Longinus, indeed, confesses that Pindar's flame 
is sometimes obscured, and that he now and then 
sinks unexpectedly and unaccountably ; but he 
prefers him with all his faults, to him who main- 
tains a continued tenor of mediocrity, and but 
rarely soars. 



4\ 
CHAP. IV. 

HESIOD. 

The fame of Hesiod is that of a sweet poet — his 
style musical and agreeable : and in this particular, 
perhaps, less merit attaches itself to the Theogony 
than to any other of his works ; although in point 
of relation it is allowed the credit of a correct poem. 
He dwells with ecstacy upon the efforts of his hero, 
who, for ever changing, is at one time a god, at 
another warm with all the aspiring hopes of a 
demigod. The picture which he pourtrays to the 
mind in the wars of the Titans, though rarely 
partaking of the force and effect which mark the 
character of his illustrious contemporary, is, never- 
theless, a correct delineation of that romance of 
which we can form no clear conception ; and which 
has produced hosts of metaphors, which lie scattered 
in the pages of the Paradise Lost. His " Dies et 
Opera" twines an immortal wreath about the poet's 
brow. It is in this poem that we see happily 
blended, a pleasing power of narration and correct 
doctrine combined with firm principle: for while 

* Hesiod is supposed to have been born at Ascra, a town in Bceotia. 
He is placed by some thirty, by others one hundred years after Homer. 
But, according to Varro and Plutarch, he was contemporary with this 
illustrious poet, and even obtained a poetical prize in competition 
with him. By Quintilian, Philostratus, and others, he is placed 
before Homer. Howsoever his chronology and rival merits may be 
contested, the general voice of antiquity is, that he lived during the 
time of our bard, and was murdered by the sons of Zanyctor, of 
Naupactum, and his body thrown into the sea; but, in some remark- 
able manner being thrown upon the coast, was recognised by the poet's 
dogs, in consequence of which his murderers shared the same fate, 

G 



12 

he describes the labours of the oxen, and charms 
us with those beautiful tropes in which he paints 
his rural scenery, his moral precepts and pleasing 
inferences drop from the lips of the old man, in a 
stronger strain of rhetoric than the eloquent effu- 
sions of a Socrates, or the sublime admonitions of 
a Plato. 



CHAP. Y. 

REMARKS UPON THE EPIC POETRY OF THE ANCIENT 
GREEKS. 

A concise, but general view, of what we under- 
stand by that species of verse termed epic, may 
serve to illustrate our subsequent observations upon 
its more particular nature. 

That a people rising to eminence in the republic 
of letters, should feel a generous emulation to 
surpass the productions of their ancestors, and 
establish in some form and principle the unpruned 
efforts of an earlier period, our own experience of 
things will bear ample testimony. The human 
mind is the cradle of reason, the grand depot of 
philosophy \ for every active mind, if it be en- 
quiring, cannot cease to be philosophic. It was in 
such a soul fraught with ideas unfashioned and 
unformed, yet possessing nerve and fire which, 
when acted upon by a vigorous and lively imagi- 
nation, taking into account the state of cultivation 
to which it had already arrived, could not fail to 
burst out in strains of heroic fervour. Our ideas 
lead us to conceive, that to spontaneous effusions 
like these we are to trace the birth of epic poetry, 



43 

which Aristotle fully corroborates. In its first 
stage, it would be rather the expression of a certain 
blind feeling', than the statement of clear prin- 
ciples. It is not to the trammels of rule and 
measurement, that we are indebted for this master- 
piece of poetry. The history of those early ages, 
when the gleaming star of day shone upon the 
mind, would supply subjects in abundance be^t 
fitted for minstrelsy ; simple, striking, full of rapid 
changes and pathetic events, calling forth the cha- 
racters of individuals into undisguised display, and 
adjusting them in the fictious garb of poesy, and 
strongly awakening the passions of the human 
mind. Hence the fancy of the bard pours itself 
forth, awakened by no other prompter save that of 
a fertile imagination, and deals out a subject most 
interesting to his audience — the achievements of 
adventurous warriors in search of plunder, of a 
mistress, of a settlement, or of simple glory ; the 
praises of a Hercules or a Theseus, a hero or a knight 
errant, braving dangers and sufferings for the sake 
of public good ; and other subjects similar in nature, 
intermingled indeed with much supernatural fiction, 
but such as the opinions of the time rendered 
credible ; and which is in fact little more than a 
translation into the language of poetry, of a crude 
and half unconscious philosophy of a simple age. 
These strains, as they became formed, or rather say 
cramped, after the rules of art, were more complex 
in diction and rhythm; and a greater variety of 
adventures is embraced within the compass of a 
single lay. Hence it may be, that many were the 
authors in that period, whose utmost efforts to 

g2 



u 

heroic excellence merited but the appellation of a 
praiseworthy attempt, when placed in competition 
with the great father of epic verse. We have no 
warrant to conclude that Homer himself was the 
pupil of any detailed formulary, although he has 
succeeded in establishing" a most unalterable code 
of rules, which, howsoever they may be the subject 
of modern comment and emendation, are themselves 
the noble parent of every thing valuable in the 
erudition of the unfledged criticism : for he was 
born rather to give, than to be subservient to rule. 
They are, notwithstanding the theory of particles 
to which they have been made subservient, and 
which principles are deduced from an examination 
of the various parts of the poem, and unhappily 
subjected to one unalterable test — they are, we say, 
a lasting monument of the superior excellency of 
the poet's muse. Epic poetry, thus originating, 
rose to early perfection, and continued to flourish 
through many ages; although of its productions, 
except of the Homeric poems, as we have before 
observed, nothing but mere fragments remain. 
Aristotle, in the little, comparatively speaking, 
which he has advanced upon epic verse, (for the 
bulk of his attention appears to have been directed to 
comedy and tragedy,) has called Homer a good poet. 
We may, however, be asked, what is an epic 
poem ? The question, if we take popular opinion 
and modern practices to be our guide, may be an- 
swered without much difficulty ; but a search into 
the truth of things will involve the question in 
more intricacy. It appears to us that there are 
two kinds of epic poems, one genuine, the other 



i 



15 

illegitimate ; one naturally resulting from a certain 
state of cultivation, and happy predisposing circum- 
stances; the other the birth of an after period, and 
the product of a more refined state, originating 
from the endeavours of learned men, in an un- 
poetical age, to emulate the glory of their pre- 
decessors, by reconstructing, in a more elaborate 
and ornate manner, the outward form and circum- 
stances of the old epic, long after the peculiar spirit, 
which had created and given significance to those 
externals, was gone. 

In the former of these classes we think we may 
safely range Homer, the father of epic poetry ; and 
in the latter class his contemporaries and others, 
whose names and writings have consequently not 
appeared above the horizon of mediocrity. 



HOMER.* 

The higher powers and lofty genius of Homer, 
emanating from a fulness of soul, like the chaste 
beams of the sun rising upon the face of things, 
extended its orb, and gave to its contemporaries 

* No less than seven illustrious cities contended for the honour of 
having given birth to this most eminent of all the Greek poets. The 
time and place of his birth — the circumstances of his youth and the more 
minute actions of his life, yet remain in a state of obscurity. Some 
suppose his era to have been 168 years after the Trojan war — others 
160 years before the foundation of Rome. According to Paterculus, 
968 a. c— to Herodotus, 884 a. c. — and the Arundelian marbles, 
907 a. c. He was called Melesigenes, because supposed to have been 
born on the borders of the river Meles. The inhabitants of Chios 
boast of showing a place on that island where he kept a school : they 
also celebrated a festival every fifth year in honour of the poet. 
Medals were also struck, representing him sitting on a throne holding 
his Iliad and Odyssey. The inhabitants of Cos would have it that 



16 

but the faint semblance of a twinkling- light. He 
swells his own sphere with profusion, and deems no 
theft profane which adds to his own brilliancy. 
He turns his lyre to the listening breeze ; and while 
the muses make their homage at his shrine, he alone 
seems unconscious of his power. To the beauty of 
his style he adds the finest powers of utterance : and 
his lofty strains of eloquence produce a more pleasing" 
effect when adorned with his metaphor. To subject 
him to the fetters of rule would be a vile imposi- 
tion upon the claims of merit. The magic running- 
through his verse is but accounted for in the peculiar 
circumstances of the man. He sprung up to gild 
a scene as yet uncreate. Longinus observes, that 
the real faults of Homer are more than overba- 
lanced by his superior beauties : and Quintilian, in 
descanting upon the merits of Homer and Virgil, 
has said of the former, that he rises with more force 
than his Roman competitor, but sometimes over- 
flows ; indeed that vividness of fancy and power of 
invention, which are the peculiar features of a 
highly wrought imagination, at times betray the 
poet into excess, even before he may be aware of 

he was buried there : the Cyprians claimed also the honour of his 
birth. Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, is supposed to have been 
the first who collected and arranged his poems in the manner in which 
they now appear to us ; but to Lycurgus we are indebted for the 
preservation of them. Homer is supposed by Clemens Alexandrinus 
to have got the plan of his poems from an illustrious rhapsodist of 
that period ; and of whom he makes honourable mention in his first 
poem styled the Iliad : but this, in the mind of the literati, is but 
estimated as a mere supposition. It was in Asia, says Plutarch, that 
Lycurgus found the works of Homer, which he compiled and digested 
into a regular volume : whereas as yet they had merely episodes of 
that famous author's poems, which were much esteemed by his 
countrymen. 



47 

having outstepped the bounds of moderation. His 
scenes are as varied as his descriptions are beautiful. 
He has furnished us with an instance of the sublime, 
in the potency which he gives to the majestic 
motion of Jupiter's head, by which he makes the 
earth to tremble. That boldness, which is the 
leading trait of the epic muse, is here dealt out 
with wonderful effect.* He next indulges in his- 
toric strain, in the narration which Diomed is made 
to give of his family. The flow of his language is 
truly natural and pleasing. 

" I boast myself (says the hero) the son of Tydeus, who 
under a mound of earth lies concealed at Thebes. Three 
brave lads were born to him at Portheus ; the one, equestrian 
(Eneus, leads his days at Pleuros, but at the lofty Calydon the 
other two. My father's sire was excellent above the rest in 
valour, and there he dwelt, after well wearied and fatigued witli 
doing penance to the ghost (of murdered Melus.) He settled 
then at Argos, and betrothed Deiphobe, the daughter of 
Adrastus. He wed into a rich family ; for many a fertile field, 
and many a well stocked orchard, had he in dowry with his 
girl j and a good flock of sheep besides was in the smiling 
bargain. In handling the spear he surpassed his countrymen: 
but of this we are well aware, because it is so true."-f 

A fleeting in the extreme is the manner in which 
Achilles acts to the aged Priam, when supplicating 
our hero on behalf of the body of Hector. Raising 
from the ground he caressed him ; and stroking his 
gray hair and silvery beard, speaking of his sons, 
the old king addresses him : 

u Fifty there were when the sons of the Greeks assembled : 
nineteen were the nourished of one mother : the rest my 

* ^H Kal Kvaviricnv eV bcppvai uevcre YLpoviwV k. t.A. 

Iliad, a', 528. 
t Iliad. &, 114. 



IS 

women bore to me in my house.* But one, before all the rest, 
dear unto me : him thou hast slain, even Hector, righting for 
his country. For his sake do I approach the ships of the 
Greeks, to redeem him of thee. Reverence the gods, O Achilles ! 
I am indeed the most miserable of men ; for sure it never was 
that any father kissed that hand which was once raised to the 
slaughter of his son (or sons.)"f 

Our hero seems no way insensible to the merits of 
old Priam's case; but raising' (as we before ob- 
served) from his supplicating" posture, he caressed 
him : then stroking his gray head and silvery beard, 
thus spoke : 

"Ah unhappy man ! indeed thou hast borne many grievous 
things ! How is it notwithstanding that thou hast dared, 
unattended and alone, to come near unto the ships of the 
Greeks, in the presence of that man who has slain thy nu- 
merous and illustrious sons? Surely thine is a heart of steel. 
Come, then, and trust in that thou hast; for it is fit that we 
should grieve; nor ever is the loss of grief regretted. For 
such is the high decree of Heaven, that they alone who bear 
the ills of life, shall find release at last. For in the temple of 
Jove are two urns, the one of blessings, and the other of ills, 
the fatal source. Hence the cup of life he fills : to whom the 
thundering god, in due measure mingling, both may give, he 
sometimes happens ill and sometimes well : but he whose 
draught is ill, becomes most hated and dishonoured by the 
gods, and by his fellow-men despised, he wanders to and fro. 
Thus indeed Peleus, my sire, has had illustrious gifts : for who 
more than he has lived in fame and wealth, from the first hour 
he saw the sun? An empire, and an happier gift of heaven 
he had, a bride, whose virtues were divinely given ; but then 
one ill, (which tempers all the bliss of man,) it was his to 



* Or, perhaps, as the words iv\ /xeydpoKri may also be rendered temple, 
it may not be improper in this place to assign to it that signification, 
since the ancients found it very convenient to envelope the odium at- 
tendant upon illegitimacy, in the cohabitation of a god. 

t Iliad. «', 495—506. 



49 

share; no son save one, and he the lieir consigned by Heaven 
to die in an inhospitable cliine, nor ever to fill the throne so 
honoured by the sire." 

Whatsoever might have been the feelings of the 
old king", when lie had heard the sentiments of 
Achilles, we are certain that it was a remonstrance 
which well suited his individual case. 

With regard to style, we may observe that Homer 
seems strictly to have adhered to the doctrine which 
we now hold : his expressions are never common- 
place ; for the use of words, with which by usage 
we have become familiar, tend to degrade stvle. 
Hence the most common event, when described in 
a figurative form of speech, assumes fresh features, 
and preserves no more the order of an every-day 
theme. Our poet, however, abounds in tropes and 
figures, which, when used in connexion with some 
circumstances which, licentid poetarum, are designed 
to render the impression stronger and more vivid, 
we have in part what is termed the magic of his 
verse. 

The speed and swiftness which our poet gives 
to the horses of iEneas,* and the lively description 
we have given of them, are circumstances in them- 
selves affording no authority that he was blind; 
yet Cicero f confirms the generally received account. 
However, we confess ourselves rather sceptical 
when we listen to the melancholy cadence, which 
figures so naturally the horses of Achilles under 
affliction at the death of Patroclus. A picture so 
finely delineated cannot fail to add a pleasing feature 

* Iliad. 6, 226. + Cic. Tus. Disput. lib. v. n. 114. 

H 



to the seventeenth book.* From the battle of the 
g a ods,f to the parting of Hector and the beautiful 
heiress of Aetion,J there is such a striking* varia- 
tion of feeling, and a kindly association of every 
generous sensation, which none but a soul fraught 
with the liveliest invention could conceive. More 
we read and more we admire the nicely finished 
tropes which the mind of our poet has assumed 
unto itself. 

The reply of Anterior to Helen is an instance of 
that eloquence, of which it may form a specimen. 
I have, in this instance, taken the advantage of 
Pope's translation, conceiving it more calculated to 
carry the force and feeling of the author, than any 
which I might presume upon giving. 

Antenor took the word, and thus began : 

Myself, O king ! have seen that wondrous man : 

When trusting Jove and hospitable laws, 

To Troy he came, to plead the Grecian cause ; 

(Great Menelaus urg'd the same request) 

My house was honour'd with each royal guest : 

I knew their persons, and admir'd their parts, 

Both brave in arms, and both approv'd in arts. 

Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view : 

Ulysses seated, greater reverence drew, 

When Atreus* son harangued the listening train, 

Just was his sense, and his expression plain, 

His words succinct, yet full, without a fault ; 

He spoke no more than just the thing he ought. 

But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound, 

His modest eyes he fix'd upon the ground. 

As one unskill'd or dumb, he seem'd to stand, 

Nor rais'd his head, nor stretch'd his scepter'd hand ; 

But, when he speaks, what elocution flows ! 

Soft as the fleeces of descending snows, 

* Iliad, i. f Iliad - ?> 4^0. % n iad. §', 437- 



ol 

The copious accents fall, with easy art ; 
Melting they fall, and sink into the heart ! 
Wondering we hear, and, lix'd in deep surprise, 
Our ears refute the censure of our eyes.* 

In an article of the Foreign Quarterly Review, 
on the works of Hoffman, written, it is supposed, 
by our celebrated novelist from the north, it is said, 
(page 63,) Shakspeare had the boldness to intimate 
by two expressions of similar force, in what manner 
and with what tone supernatural beings would find 
utterance ; and he quotes the passage — 

The sheeted dead 
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. 

Sir Walter Scott should recollect that Homer set 
Shakspeare the example of this boldness. When 
describing Mercury leading off the suitors, he 
says — though in the translation Cowper has given 
us, it may have lost some of its force — 

He led them gibb'ring down into the shades ; 

As in some hollow rock the cluster'd bats, 

Drawn from the chink by force in which they slept, 

Take wing, and, squeaking, flutter all around ; 

So after beauteous Mercury the ghosts 

Troop'd downwards, gibb'ring all the dreary way.-j- 



Iliad. 7', 204—227- 

rat 8e Tpi^ovcai htovro. 



'Cls 8' 8Ve WKT€gi8ss jj.vx<? &vtqov Oea-irecrioio 

Tpifyvcrai iroriovrai, 4rr4i /ce ris airoirearjaiv 

'Op/xaOov ck TreVpTjs, avd r aX\-r\\r)cnv Zx ovrai ' 

*\Qs at TiTQfyvlai ap fjiaav %X 6 & &P a ff< P lv 

'Epfxeias cucdnrjla kcit' tvQUisvra, /ceAevfla. 

Odyss. w, 5 — 10. 

h2 



52 

It is evident that Homer has carried the boldness 
much further by the simile he introduces on the 
occasion. But he does not stop here; the squeaking 
souls pass over the flood of the ocean, by the gates 
of the sun, and the people of dreams, to where the 
Mux* x«/aovt«v dwell. It may be remarked, that there 
is that richness of period, that distinctness, yet 
peculiarity of idea, embodied so happily in his 
verse, which are eminently his own. Hence the 
tact and hurry he has given to Paris, putting on 
his armour and marching to the field.* 

"Nor does Paris tarry long in the lofty palaces : but after 
having put on his coat of mail — beautiful indeed it was, and 
inlaid with brass — and with quick step having sought the 
tumultuous city, he hastened thither; as when a fiery steed, 
standing in his stall, while from a manger full of richest 
barley he eats joyously ; after a while he snaps the cord that 
held him there, and with the halter dragging through the 
plain, his head high in the clouds, and neighing wantonly, 
while over his limbs he throws his flowing mane, proud in the 
symmetry of his form ; and furiously stamping through the 
plain, he seeks the accustomed meadow and retreat of horses, 
and loves the stream where he was wont to go. Thus indeed 
the royal son of Priam, Paris, stood, refulgent in his splendid 
accoutrements, near at the gate of lofty Pergamus, just as a 
cock swiftly passed along, crowing as it were ; when, without 
further notice of the event, he suddenly fell in with Hector, 
who, not having yet set out, was at that moment talking with 
his wife." 

The passages which I have selected from the 
Iliad, it will be allowed, are instances of the 



* Ovde Tldgis Sf]6wev iv v\p7]\di(ri Bo/xotcnv' 
'AAA' oy,' en-el ko.t48v kXvtcl Tev%ea TroiniXa x^^i 
Xzvar <htvr ava fcv, 7iwt Kpaiirvoiai "nsiroiQ&s. k. t. A. 

Iliad. £', 503-516. 



53 

beauties whieh are so elegantly scattered through 
the verses of that poem, though I will not presume 
to term them emphatically the beauties of Homer. 
To riper judgment than mine, and a more enlarged 
acquaintance with the merits of that poet, that 
decision must be referred. "Figures in general," 
says an eminent author, " may be described as being 
that language which is prompted either by the 
imagination or the passions : and the rhetoricians 
commonly divide them into two classes — figures of 
words and figures of thought. Persons may write 
and speak with propriety who know nothing of the 
figures of speech, nor ever studied any rules relating 
to them : yet the embellishments used to adorn an 
epic poem could in any sense be but very common- 
place, were it not for that lustre it borrows from 
the introduction of a metaphor. The observance 
of this rule is indeed a tax upon any votary of 
Parnassus, and is itself a feature deserving of this 
law, and inseparable from the very existence of 
the poet : but as regards Homer, the observance 
of this law is inseparable from the very existence 
of his poems; since, as to an historian, he makes 
no pretensions, the truth of which is fully exposed 
in his account of Bellerophon. Here we may 
borrow some interesting remarks from the profound 
researches of Bryant: "At other times," says that 
writer, when speaking of Homer, "he invented 
names and characters, and these rendered plausible 
by some anecdotes with which he embellished them, 
and the genealogy of the persons concerned. But 
as these characters are in a great measure fictitious, 
he seldom rises high in genealogy ; generally makes 



54 

it terminate very soon in a deity. Thus Idomeneus, 
of Crete, was the son of Minos, the son of Ju- 
piter. Polypoetes the son of Pirithous, the son 
of Jupiter. Tlepolemus the son of Hercules. As- 
calaphus and lalmenus were the sons of Mars. 
Parthenius the son of Hermes. Sarpedon the im- 
mediate son of Jupiter ; from whom many others 
are sooner or later descended. Some are repre- 
sented as the sons of river-gods : among* whom we 
find Menestheus, the son of Sperchius, in Thessaly ; 
and Asius, Axius, Stentor, and Scamandrius, of the 
like lineage, in Asia and Thrace. Satmus, Iphition, 
and iEsepus were born of Naids ; and Mesthles and 
Antipho, two Mseonians, of a lake." With the 
Greeks their days of darkness had been many ; and 
they constituted a period, which, when the dawn of 
literature had risen upon them, they were ashamed 
to look back on : they therefore exerted their in- 
vention to the utmost in finding" out the most con- 
sistent fictions, to support the glory to which they 
aspired, and trace back their political importance 
through a long series of ages, during the greater 
part of which they had scarcely any political exist- 
ence at all.* Hence in the place of matters of fact 
and correct detail, tropes and figures were used, and 
became almost the body of the poem. It may, 
however, be here observed, that no figures will 

* From the preservation of Homer's poems by memory, and not 
from his own writing them down, they were styled rhapsodies, as sung 
by him like ballads, by parts, and not composed and connected toge- 
ther in complete works, are opinions well known from the ancient 
commentators ; though this supposal seems to myself, as well as to 
Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. lib. i. p. 269,) highly probable, p. 785. 
Joseph, contra Apion. 



render a cold and empty composition interesting; 
whereas if a sentiment be sublime and pathetic, 
it can support itself perfectly without any borrowed 
assistance : in evidence of this assertion, we find 
that some of the best and most admired passages, 
in some writers are expressed in the simplest lan- 
guage. To approach Homer more critically, we 
may remark, that he seems by no means economical 
in his use of words, if the ground on which he 
stands with us as a poet of the first order, be not 
too sacred to be unceremoniously trampled upon by 
a mere scholiast : and we admit of the apparent 
irregularities and emendations noticed by critics. 
It is evident, however, that the admission of the 
digamma would reconcile many a metrical pecu- 
liarity, and would less frequently call up the services 
of the ictus metricus, his common licentiate. A. 
Mr. Williams, to whose industry we are indebted 
for an excellent guide to Homeric metre, has drawn 
up a code of laws, which are to be the test of our 
Poet's obedience; and in the true spirit of an ac- 
commodating legislator, has subjected him to the 
governance of his own principle, and to the fetters 
of his own peculiar usages. The religion and phi- 
losophy of Homer seem principally to consist in a 
firm belief in the divination of heroes — that destiny 
in every sense of the word is unalterable — that the 
anger of the gods is to be appeased, since all re- 
verses of fortune are attributed to that answer. Yet 
notwithstanding this imperfect system of theology, 
the caution of Tydeus to his son Diomed, before he 
sets out for Troy, is exceedingly interesting as a 
caution, and deserving of a more enlightened people. 



Plato, although lie forbade the reading* of Homer's 
works in public, yet would not be without them 
in his own closet. 

It would be an interesting- enquiry, whether any 
allusion in the Iliad and Odyssey is ever made to 
the Scriptures. Much has been said concerning' the 
correspondence of Alcinous with Solomon, which 
it may be unnecessary to repeat, were we not 
continually struck with resemblance, which is so 
evident between the speeches of Ulysses, when 
petitioning for relief, and the style of David's 
prayers, when in distress. In fact, there now exists 
in the British Museum, in manuscript, an article 
written by Dr. Bentley, (which paragraph will be 
found in Barker's excellent edition of Lempriere,) 
in order to prove that the Iliad and Odyssey were 
written by Solomon during his apostasy. There is 
something worthy of observation in the form of the 
oath made by Juno to Upnos* — she swears by the 
earth and sea : and the mighty angel described by 
St. John in the Revelation, placed one foot upon 
the earth and the other on the sea, and cried with 
a loud voice, as when a lion roareth.f This oath 
was made on behalf of her dear Greeks, that the 
God of Sleep would sit heavily upon the eyelids of 
Jove. J Juno abounds in promises — but in this in- 
stance we have no account of her having given a 
Grace or a throne to her benefactor. However, 
here we see the positive limits of the pagan deities. 

* Tbu 5' o5t6 7rpocre€t7re fiowms ir6TPia"Hgr)' 

"Yirve, rlrj Se av raiha fiela (ppecrl vyo-i ^voivas ; k. t. \. 

Iliad. |'. 263, 264. 

t Rev. x. 23. % ni ad. Fi 235 « 



The queen of the gods is made to supplicate an 
inferior power.* 

The excellency of Homer compared with that of 
his contemporaries, seems to have thrown an almost 
impenetrable shade over the face of letters. It is 
only upon this principle that we are able to account 
for the sterility of authors for nearly two centuries 
after his era. Amongst the earliest who made any 
figure subsequent to this period, were Alcseus and 
Sappho ; and little notice can be taken of them, 
since the very scanty relics of their works have not 
afforded matter of much criticism, and therefore 
preclude the necessity of any from me. It may, 
however, be observed, in honour of these writers, 
that the sweetness and elegance of their numbers 

* Notwithstanding the great proficiency of the ancient Greeks in 
other arts, they appear to have been ignorant of what in our times is 
considered indispensable to social intercourse : the use of money 
seems not to have been known amongst them. They carried on their 
traffic principally by barter, as appears from the following passage: 

"EvBev &p' olulfavTO Kag7)KO(i6oovl^s 'Axatol, 
"A\koi pXv xaA./ccS, &\Aoi ft afowvi aiS^gtp, 
*A\\oi frivols, &W01 8' avToict &6€<ro~iv, 

"AWoi 5' aj/Spcwro'Sea'ar 

Iliad, -ft, 472—475. 

Each, in exchange, proportion'd treasure gave; 
Some brass, or iron ; some an ox, or slave. 

Also, in the instance of Glaucus, exchanging his golden armour, 
worth one hundred head of oxen, with Diomed, for his brazen armour, 
worth but nine : 

"Evd' o3t€ r\a6ic<p KfoviSris <pp&as e£eA€TO Zevs, 
*Os irpbs TvSeiSrjv Ato/i^Seo ti\>x* &fxet$e, 
Xpixrea x^Keiuv, kKa.T6p.fioC ivveafiolwv. 

Iliad, f, 234-236. 

Again, when Agamemnon endeavours to appease the anger of 
Achilles, by the offer of sumptuous presents, he presents him with a 
magnificent list of cities in his gift ; and in order to describe the 

I 



58 

Were proverbial ; and theirs being of lyral measure, 
they have happily immortalized themselves by as- 
sociating* their own names with that species of 
verse. 

value of them, is obliged to have recourse to the vague epithets of 

f5 vcuofieva, Toir)€(T(rav, fia^vXei/xova, ajxir€\6e(r<Tav. Now, had Homer's 
heroes understood any thing of coinage, all this circumlocution would 
have been avoided, and would have presented us at once with a clear 
statement of the yearly revenues. 

From the poems of Homer, the Greeks appear to have been in a 
great measure in possession of our arts, our ideas of policy, our 
customs, our superstitions. Although living at so remote a period, 
they enjoyed many of our luxuries ; although corrupted and debased 
by -the grossest religious codes, they entertained many of our notions 
of morality. The most skilful artisan, and the most enlightened sage, 
may, even in our days, find in his poems always an incitement to 
curiosity, and frequently a source of instruction. It is no romantic 
commendation of Homer, says Mr. Blackwall, to say that no man 
understood persons or things better than he ; or had a deeper insight 
into the passions and humours of human nature. He represents 
great things with such sublimity, and little ones with such propriety, 
that he always makes the one admirable and the other pleasant. 

In the best of the ancients we observe obscurities ; yet they do not 
proceed from want of taste and confusion of thought, or ambiguous 
expressions — from a crowd of parentheses or perplexed periods; but 
either the places continue the same as they were in the original, and 
are unintelligible to us only by reason of our ignorance of some of 
those times and countries, or the passages are altered and spoiled by 
the imprudence of transcribers, or the want of skill on the part of 
those who arrogate learning. In many instances a various reading 
may happily discover the sense of the author ; which, for the removal 
of some small mark of distinction into a more suitable place in the 
sentence, or a slight alteration in the position of a single word, has 
created obscurity.* 



* Mr. Williams, in his corrections of metrical errata, has adduced passages from 
Homer, which he conceives first suggested what may appropriately be termed "the 
theory of the particles;" which supposes that, in the first transcription of the Homeric 
poems, certain marks understood by the parties for whom the copies were designed, were 
employed for the particles &pa, ap, pa, ye, which are not essential either to the sense 
or the grammatical construction, but are intended to add emphasis to the words or ex- 
pression to which they are joined; of which marks it is reasonable to imagine that the 



59 



CHAP. VI. 

HISTORY—ITS EARLIEST ANNALS, NATURAL DIS- 
CREPANCIES, AND PRISTINE IMPORTANCE. 

Some few years after the poetical period of the 
Iliad and Odyssey, another order of writing* was 
attempted. Dunbar observes, that the writing 
of prose was very uncommon before the time of 
Herodotus. It was first cultivated in Ionia by 
the philosophers, and but slowly; then by the 
historians Hecatseus, Hellanicus, Charon of Lamp- 
sachus, and Xanthus of Lydia. Now we may 
readily suppose, that as Homer overwhelmed the 



primitive transcribers occasionally lost sight, as also that sometimes when their spirits 
were fresh, they treated the insertion of the particles themselves and the use of the 
marks with indifference. At the period of the arrangement of the poems, these marks 
could scarcely have been intelligible; and hence, in order to restore what was conceived 
to be metrical propriety, alterations may in many places have been made by unskilful 
and comparatively illiterate persons, whilst in others the defective readings may have 
been continued. (Class. Jour. No. lxxv.) And from these passages it will be seen in 
what a latitude these particles are used in the Iliad and Odyssey ; and it may be safely 
affirmed, that in the introduction of these particles, more than one half of the metrical 
anomalies that disgrace our present copies of the poems, may be easily and satisfactorily 
removed. 

Perhaps it may not offend the taste of the critical reader, if in this place we adduce 
another instance or two to the foregoing observation. The latter part of the 326. verse 
of the Hymn of Callimachus on Apollo was in the first editions thus: 

Tis 6.v ovpea Qoifiov de:5ot ; 

Who can sing of Phoebus in the mountains? 

Which was neither sense of itself, nor had any connection with what preceded. But by 
the emendation adopted by Mr. Stephen, the sense is adjusted without altering a word in 
the sentence. 

To this laudable end many critics have laboured with considerable success ; but 
perhaps to none are we more indebted than to the efficient services of Dr. Bentley, who, 
uniting the qualities of a sound and discerning critic with those of a clear and vigorous 
writer, has merited infinite praises of the scholar, for his performances upon the classics. 

12 



60 

mediocrity of poets, so Herodotus, by the lustre of 
his superior brilliancy, threw the others into the 
shade: hence he is emphatically the historian of his 
age. Having' come to the period when the Greek 
language assumes a new feature in the form of 
history, it may be well to observe, that no authors 
are recorded of any respectability much earlier 
than the Persian invasion; and they differed 
amongst themselves — Hellanicus disagreed with 
Acusilaus, Acusilaus found great fault with Hesiod, 
Ephorus exposed the numerous faults of Hellanicus, 
Timseus those of Ephorus; and he, whom Mitford 
so emphatically terms " the honest historian of 
his age," — "the prince, the father of history," is 
scarcely credited in some of his relations. He has 
been accused of having made incorrect statements,* 

* It well deserves to be considered, that Josephus says that all the 
following Greek historians looked on Herodotus as a fabulous author ; 
and, presently, (sect. 14.) how Manetho, the most authentic writer of 
Egyptian history, greatly complains of his mistakes in Egyptian 
affairs; as also Strabo, (b. xi. p. 207,) the most accurate geographer 
and historian, esteemed him such ; and Xenophon, the most correct 
historian in the affairs of Cyrus, implies, that Herodotus's account of 
that great man is almost entirely romantic. See Notes on Antiq. 
b. xi. ell. sect. 1. and Hutchinson's Prolegomena to his edition of 
Xenophon's Cyropaedia : and that we have already seen in the note 
on Antiq. b. viii. c. 10. sect. 3. how very little Herodotus knew about 
the Jewish affairs and country, and that he greatly affected what we 
call the marvellous, as M. Rollin has lately and justly determined : 
whence we are not always to depend on the authority of Herodotus, 
where it is unsupported by other evidence ; but ought to compare the 
other evidence with his, and, if it preponderate, to prefer it before his. 
I do not mean by this, that Herodotus wilfully related what he be- 
lieved to be false, (as Ctesias seems to have done,) but that he often 
wanted evidence, and sometimes preferred what was marvellous, to 
what was best attested as really true.— -Joseph, contra Apion. p. 785. 



(H 

and not un frequently gross omissions.* With regard 
to the former of these accusations, it is but fair that 
his own words should be the test of his veracity. 
" Let every one," says he, " make use of his infor- 
mation as far as the circumstance may appear 
probable to him; but I am determined to write 
minutely whatever 1 have collected from their re- 
port.' ' He repeatedly informs us, that what he 
transmits with respect to Egypt, he heard from 
the mouth of the Egyptian priests ;f and, as if he 
thought even the sacredness of their profession 
could not screen them in some instances from the 
imputation of falsehood, he made the preceding 
caution in order to call in question their authority. 
He wrote in a dialect of Attica, and his style is 
considered smooth and elegant, without any exalted 
ideas or poetical pictures which so much encumber 
the narrations of an after writer. It is no un- 
meaning compliment when we say that he wrote 
with Attic purity. The Jewish historian, in en- 
deavouring to account for the inaccuracies and 



* The Grecian historian has omitted the very mention of a calamity 
that fell upon Egypt, which was predicted by Jeremiah, chap. xliv. 13, 
viz. — that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, should come and smite 
the land of Egypt : and this prophecy received its dreadful accomplish- 
ment 573 years a. c. Of this calamity, however, Herodotus, who 
flourished little more than a century afterwards, has made no mention: 
his silence has given rise to a remark of Scaliger : " Quod perspicue 
indicatur Jeremiae id Herodotus ignorabit: quia sacerdotes illi iEgyptii, 
qui ei suscitanti de rebus iEgyptiacis respondebant ; caetera quae ad 
illorum ignaviam, servitutem, et tributa, quae Chaldaeis pendebant, 
tacuerunt." — Scaliger in Fragment, p. 11. 

-J- Toiffi fiev vvv un-' AlywrTioov XeyofMci/oiai xpo-ffdco #Tey ra roiavra tridaud 
in' ifioi Se irapa ndvla rbv \6yov wrdtceiTai, '6tl ra, Kzy6n$va vn tuMwv 

duo?) 7go<f>«.— Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 123. 



(v2 

disagreements above cited, as the prevailing sin 
with writers of that early period, observes that the 
first and most powerful cause was the want of public 
documents, a want which both occasioned errors 
and allowed the Greek writers to falsify with im- 
punity. Hence Grcecia mendax was a common 
phrase in Rome. Even among the Athenians, the 
oldest of the public records was the laws of Draco,* 
who was born a little before the usurpation of 
Pisistratus, which event the Parian marbles fix 
625 A. c. 

In the earliest ages, every event that excited any 
degree of interest in the minds of the people, was 
wrought up in verse, and in this manner trans- 
mitted to posterity. Any other circumstances of a 
public nature were preserved with a care propor- 
tioned to the importance of them ; hence some were 
engraven on brass, or marble, others stamped on 
medals. In this manner an imperfect account of 
former events was handed down, and the memory 
of some remarkable occurrences preserved ; and 
these, slight as they were, afforded means whereby, 
at an after period, to form a regular code or his- 
tory of events. Those historians, or annalists, who 
are made mention of prior to the time of Hero- 
dotus, confined themselves to the history of a single 
city or state, and endeavoured to heighten the re- 
spectability of their founders as much as possible ; 
and for this purpose had recourse to those fictions 
and fabulous legends, which in the end generally 
find their origin in a deity. 

* Arwood's Lit. Antiq. of Greece, p. 41. 



63 



HERODOTUS— 500 A. C. 



This historian was born at Halicarnassus, and at 
an early period of his life fled to Samos, when his 
country laboured under the tyranny of Lygdamis, 
and travelled over Egypt, Italy, and all Greece. 
He returned from his exile, and in the thirty-ninth 
year of his age was an active instrument in de- 
throning the tyrant of Caria, for which service he 
was but very ill requited by his countrymen. After 
the completion of his travels he returned to the 
island of Samos, for the purpose of digesting his 
information into something like the form of a re- 
gular history of the country, customs, literature, 
and manners of the people with whom he had made 
casual acquaintance. His history contained an ac- 
count of the ancient dynasties of the Medes, the 
Persians, the Phoenicians, the Lydians, the Greeks, 
the Egyptians, and the Scythians. He met with 
the envy of his countrymen, not long after his 
return, and consequently found it necessary once 
more to flee his country, and seek refuge in Greece. 
It was on this occasion that, happening to arrive 
during the celebration of the Olympic games, he 
read his history before the assembly. It was re- 
ceived with great marks of satisfaction from the 
audience, and each book was decreed the honour- 
able appellation of one of the muses. Some time 
after this he repaired to Attica, and read his history 
before the audience assembled, during the cele- 
bration of the feast in honour of Minerva, at Athens. 
Not long after this he accompanied a colony of 



64 

Athenians to Thurium, in Magna Grsecia, where 
onr historian is supposed to have laid his bones. 
The history of Herodotus was upon a more ex- 
tensive plan than that of any subsequent writer ; 
as for any preceding*, we have before adjudged him 
to be without compeer. He is accused by some of 
having- made incorrect statements, and not un fre- 
quently gross omissions. " It is my duty," says 
Herodotus, " to report what is reported, not, how- 
ever, that I am obliged to give credit to all; and 
this observation I would have applied throughout 
the whole history."* 

Much allowance also ought to be made for the 
casual inaccuracies which we meet with in his his- 
tory; and they may, with greater propriety, be 
attributed to the circumstances of the times in which 
he lived, than to the historian who is convicted of 
them. It is necessary, therefore, before we doubt 
the veracity of Herodotus's history, to weigh well 
the principle upon which he professes to have 
written: he will then appear to be at once exo- 
nerated from the severity of the critic and stigma 
of falsehood ; since it is for us to decide, whether 
he be speaking upon his own authority, or on that 
of others. Our historian availed himself of every 
opportunity of obtaining correct and incontestable 
data. He carefully consulted their monuments, 
inscriptions, and historical chronicles. Cautious 
of adopting traditions without sufficient authority, 
he spared no pains to obtain all possible evidence 



• 'Ey<i) Se otpei Xw \4yeiv ra \ey6fieva, treiOecOal ye fxev &v ov wavra-naai 
d<peiAw nal ,uol tovto to tiros exerw is irdvTa— Lib. f], 57, 61. 



65 

to warrant a correct inference. Thus he informs 
us that he travelled from Memphis to Heliopolis, 
and from Heliopolis to Thebes, expressly to ascer- 
tain whether the priests of the last two places would 
agree with those of Memphis.* 

D'Anville and Rennell, among" geographers ; 
Shaw, Parke, Browne, Belzoni, among" travellers ; 
Cuvier among" naturalists ; all bear their powerful 
testimony to the astonishing accuracy of the father 
of history. But perhaps the greatest proof that 
can be adduced of the veracity and impartiality of 
Herodotus, is the recitation of his history before 
the public at the Olympic games. 

The acquaintance which he had formed with the 
most famous countries, and the most valuable things 
in them, and the knowledge he had obtained of the 
most considerable persons of the age, qualify him 
in some degree to write the history of the Greeks 
and barbarians, since his history presents the reader 
with all the antiquities of Greece, and casts a light 
upon all her authors. 

THUCYDIDES—471— 391 A. C. 

Thucydides was born at Athens, and descended 
from the famous general Miltiades. He was but 
sixteen years of age when, accompanying his father 
Clotus to the Olympic games, he heard Herodotus 
read his history. He had hitherto evinced consi- 
derable desire to excel in every exercise of an 
athletic and gymnastic nature, which chiefly oc- 
cupied the attention of his contemporaries; but 

* y E0e\ccv e<5eVcu c« ffVfifif)<rovTai roici \6yotffi relffi iv MeV<f><— Lib. #', 3. 

K 



66 

the applause which was awarded to the efforts of 
the historian, kindled in the mind of Thncydides 
a generous emulation, and prompted him to the 
attainment of that excellence which was the praise 
of his countryman. Some time after this he en- 
tered the army. During- the progress of the Pelo- 
ponnesiau war he was commissioned to relieve 
Amphipolis, a town between Macedonia and Thrace, 
and surrounded by the Strymon, a river which 
separates Thrace from Macedonia, and falls into 
the iEgean Sea, but the quick march of Brasidas 
thwarted his attempts. This failure in his expe- 
dition was the cause of his banishment. But re- 
tiring" to Thrace, he was happily thrown into a more 
direct line for the attainment of that particular 
and local information, which is so accurately de- 
tailed in his history. The great objection urged 
against the narrations of Thucydides, is that pecu- 
liarity of style which leads him to deal out the 
particulars of events in a never-ending concatena- 
tion of circumstances, which is apt not unfre- 
quently to divert the attention of the reader from 
the source or thread of the relation. He was an 
eye-witness of the events which he records, and 
this may be some plea for his perhaps otherwise too 
frequent digression into the minutia? of his narra- 
tions. Thucydides was more desirous of commu- 
nicating information than attentive to grammatical 
accuracy, since his errors in the latter case are not 
unfrequent. That his style of writing has more 
claims to elegance and rhetorical nicety than that 
of Herodotus, is but a concession due to his superior 
advantages \ yet let it be remembered, that the 



07 

former had his tutor Antiphon to instruct him in 
composition, and Anaxagoras to teach him the art 
of thinking' : hence he is more lofty and luxuriant. 
Although his ideas appear to flower irregularly, and 
to be not quite so easy in point of sentiment as those 
of his great predecessor, nevertheless he has more 
claims to accuracy and beauty of style, than either 
of the two historians. His fidelity as an historian, 
is enhanced by his ocular demonstration of the 
facts which he records. That he was thoroughly 
acquainted with his subject, is evident from the 
familiar and masterly manner in which he handles 
the various parts of it. He is profound, just, and 
impartial. The reflections which Thucydides makes 
upon every plan that was proposed, bespeak his 
skill as a general, and judgment as a political 
economist. The frequent laconicisms made use of 
in his harangues, which, by the way, are the philo- 
sophical part of his writings, cast a degree of 
obscurity over the meaning of the historian. He 
is generally introduced by succeeding writers, as 
addressing himself to the passions and feelings of 
men, in which situation he greatly excelled. De- 
mosthenes is said to have been a great admirer of 
Thucydides : in fact, the fire of his descriptions, 
the conciseness, and, at the same time, nervous and 
energetic matter of his narratives, may in no small 
degree be traced in the Philippics. He was recalled 
from exile, and died at Athens, in the eightieth 
year of his age, 391 A. c. 

The history of Thucydides is comprised in eight 
books, and is an authentic account of the Pelopon- 
nesian war up to the period of his death. 

k2 



OS 



XENOPHON— 449-^359 A. C. 



Xenophon was a citizen of Athens, son of G reikis, 
born about 449 years A. c. He is distinguished for 
his very early attachment to Socrates. He had an 
excellent opportunity of becoming thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the character of that great philo- 
sapher; and much to the honour of his youth, it 
will appear hereafter, that his improvement in the 
sublime example of his master was deserving of 
the advantages he enjoyed. He became early 
initiated into the principles and doctrines of Soc- 
rates, and, as might be fairly supposed, imbibed 
his more peculiar ideas and sentiments. The phi- 
losopher also seems to have been much pleased with 
the prepossessing and amiable disposition of his 
youthful enquirer, and nourished him carefully 
with the genial milk of his muse. At the age of 
twenty-six, and during the Peloponnesian war, he 
accompanied his great master in a military expe- 
dition, and his safety in the battle was owing to 
his own military valour and intrepidity. However, 
ambition and the persuasive voice of glory, induced 
him to disobey the wishes of his great master; 
since, when the younger Cyrus was preparing to 
make war upon his brother Artaxerxes, he together 
with other noble-minded Athenians, felt the risings 
of that generous principle, which prompted him to 
espouse the cause of youthful ambition. His friend 
Proxenus accompanied him in this expedition, 
about which he was desired by Socrates to consult 



the oracle of Apollo; however, at the death of 
Cyrus and the treacherous murder of the Grecian 
generals, he was selected from amongst the officers 
to conduct the troops home, who are supposed to 
have been three hundred leagues wide of their 
country. The dangers through which he passed, 
the perils he avoided, and adventures attendant 
upon the retreat of the ten thousand, he has care- 
fully detailed in his work, entitled the "Anabasis;" 
and in this, like the author of the Commentaries 
on the Gallic Wars, he was the historian of his own 
exploits. In his " Memorabilia' ' he has carefully 
preserved the axioms and doctrine of his venerable 
master; the most grateful tribute which an affec- 
tionate pupil could render to the memory of his 
much esteemed preceptor. " This work/ 7 observes 
Mr. Dunbar, " is the best account which we have 
of the life and doctrines of Socrates, since it was 
penned for the specific purpose of vindicating his 
much injured master from the false aspersions of his 
enemies, as well as to communicate other local in- 
formation connected with the state. " His " Hele- 
nica," or continuation of Thucydides' History of the 
Peloponnesian War, falls short of the accuracy which 
marks some other of his performances. The infor- 
mation with which his colleague stored his mind — 
the vigour and energy which shine clearly in his 
descriptions — and, above all, the profoundness of 
thought, which are leading features in his history, 
are comparatively absent in the continuation by 
Xenophon. In his " Cyropsedia," or an account of 
the life and actions of the younger Cyrus, according 
to the judgment of Cicero, he seems rather to 



70 

draw the model of an accomplished prince and of 
a perfect government, than to adhere strictly to 
historical truth. There is an accommodation of 
sentiment and accordance of feeling" in this per- 
formance, that strongly mark the courtier. In 
this we may trace the nicely arranged compliments 
of a Roman poet, and a constant attendant at the 
court of Augustus. The style of the Cyropsedia 
is so perfectly easy and captivating, as scarcely to 
fail of pleasing even the scrutinizing, how much 
soever the fact of its being a court compliment may 
detract from the real merits of the piece. We are 
sensible that the author's observations upon the 
formation, support, discipline, and conduct of 
armies, containing excellent views of policy and 
admirable principles of government, render it well 
worthy the perusal of the soldier, politician, and 
philosopher. 

How artful is the manner in which the his- 
torian has introduced his excellent lecture against 
drunkenness ! Putting his sentiments into the 
mouth of a child, and disguising his ideas under 
the veil of a little story, he has made of Cyrus the 
lecturer, when otherwise he might have employed 
a grave and philosophic air. Little doubt remains 
as to its being solely the invention of our historian, 
and it is in this sense that we may understand what 
Tully* has said of this admirable work ; — that the 
author has not pretended to follow the strict rules 
of truth and history, but designed to give princes, 



* Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad fidem historiae scriptus, sed ad 
effigiem justi imperii.— Ad Qu. Frat. lib. i. epist. 1. 



71 

in the person of Cyrus, a perfect model of the 
manner in which they ought to govern their sub- 
jects. That is — he has added to the substance of 
the history, which is very true in itself, for the 
purpose of exalting its beauty, and to serve for in- 
struction to mankind. The history of the little 
Cyrus turning cup-bearer, which shows how dis- 
honourable drunkenness is to princes, is far better 
than all the precepts of philosophers. 

However, to set the merit of Cyrus in a better 
light, we need only compare him with another 
king of Persia — I mean Xerxes, his grandson, who, 
hurried on by an absurd motive of revenge, at- 
tempted to subdue Greece. We see the latter sur- 
rounded with whatever is held most in esteem, and 
glitters most in the eyes of men ; being sovereign of 
the largest empire at that time in the world, having 
immense riches, and forces by sea and land in almost 
an incredible number. On the other hand, we may 
look upon Cyrus as the wisest conqiueror and most 
accomplished hero mentioned in profane history. 
He evidently wanted none of those qualities that 
form the great man : he had wisdom, moderation, 
courage, greatness of soul, noble sentiments, a 
wonderful dexterity in directing the will and con- 
ciliating affection, a profound knowledge in all 
branches of the art of war, and extensive under- 
standing, supported by a prudent resolution in 
forming and executing great projects. 

The style of Xenophon possesses all the politeness 
of a studied composition, and yet all the freedom 
and winning familiarity of elegant conversation. 



72 



CHAP. VII. 

THE ORIGIN, FORMATION, AND NATURE OF THE 
GREEK DRAMA. 

After letters, if we may be allowed the expression, 
had forced themselves upon Greece and formed 
poets and historians, and, in one sense of the word, 
philosophers, we find her emulate the dramatic 
muse. Of the ancient sacred rites many were per- 
formed by women; consequently we often find a 
chorus of women in the Greek drama. 

The drama was at first merely prologue, and 
was not therefore dramatical : and if we substitute 
Hercules, Agamemnon, and Theseus, for Thomas a 
Becket, we have the original form of the Greek 
drama, when it assumes its more moderate cha- 
racter, as performed on the feasts of Bacchus, for 
the subject was generally Bacchic : and we suppose 
the mystic tale, related by the god himself, by 
Semele or Pentheus, or by some other Dionysiacal 
character, as far as the intervening chorus allowed 
it to be thus considered ; such as those who, while 
they burned the incense upon the altar, and poured 
libations and performed other rites, sometimes ad- 
dressed themselves to the actor in terms of sym- 
pathy, and sometimes to the audience. That part 
of our playhouses which is occupied with fiddles, 
&c, had the high altar of Bacchus richly orna- 
mented and elevated, while around it moved the 
chorus, in solemn vestments, with crowns and in- 
cense, chanting at intervals their songs. 



73 

One Choerilus (history informs us) had first the 
honour of being 1 styled a tragic poet. The praise 
of acting* the comedy is given to Thespis, a.c. 536, 
(a native of Icaria, in the parish of Athens,) who, 
in his ambulant car, traversed the country ; and 
who, it may be remembered, Horace very ludi- 
crously represents, together with his companions, as 
having their features besmeared with vine lees.* 

The only plays that have come down to us, ob- 
serves an eminent critic, are Athenian ; and Athens 
was the only Greek state where the drama had at 
once a native growth, and a fruitful diversity of 
branches ; and observe the Greek word OUrpov was 
often applied to places where merely vocal and 
musical contests were celebrated ; and there is not 
a shadow of evidence, that a single play was ever 
invented by the gloomy genius of Sparta. 

The word drama is not of Attic but Doric deri- 
vation. And if the generic term for acting plays 
came from a dialect foreign to the Athenians, it 
may naturally be asked, how can we assign to them 
the first invention of acting ? In answer to which, 
some writers have observed, that the Doric Greeks 
primitively applied the word drama to a species of 
poetry which was not in our sense dramatic, and 
that the consenting voice of antiquity ascribes the 
first introduction of a player, distinct from a chorus 
of singers, to Thespis of Attica. Now, in our 
judgment it is but reasonable to conclude, that the 
ancients would offer the first sacrifice of that taste 



* The olive and the vine were early introduced into Attica, and 
highly cultivated. The dowry of a virgin was in olive plants. 

1^ 



74 

which was evidently growing* upon them; in 
honour of the god at whose hands they acknow- 
ledged the receipt of every thing, and whose very 
language was verse : hence we find that the rites 
of Bacchus, or Dionysus, or Jupiter, &c, were first 
the subjects of early drama ; but, in a word, this 
dramatic poetry is nothing but the transformation 
of lyrical poetry into what is called dramatical, as 
epic is that of tragic * Bentley, in his Disserta- 
tions on the Epistles of Phalaris, seems to have set 
the question for ever at rest — that ever the word or 
the thing existed before Thespis, that is, as tragic 
poetry, in Greece. 

The car of Thespis was the first stage that sepa- 
rated the solitary player from the chorus. Our 
hero was the contemporary of Solon and Pisis- 
tratus, and was the favourite of the latter. The 
meanness of the prize which Thespis won at one 
of his engagements, argues, says an eminent author 
of a later period, that his office was more honorary 
than lucrative. In vague terms we are told that 
his car was itinerant ; but as the high altar was 
at Athens, Thespis' journeys must have been made 
there principally ; and these are rather to be com- 
pared to an old catholic pilgrimage, than to the 
strolling of a showman in quest of bread, and de- 
pendant upon chance and charity. How merry 
people could be in catholic pilgrimages has been 

* Tiaga(\>avei(T7]S Se ttjs rgayipdias Ka\ KWjxqfiias, ol i<j> eKaregav r)\v irolrjcriv 
6pfj.<bvhs Kara tV oliceiav tpvaiv, ol fiev avr\ t&v Idfxficav, Ka/xcpSoiroiol h/kvovro, 
ol Se aj/rl tG>v iircav, rpay<fSoSiSdaKaXoi. — Aristot. de Poet. chap. iv. 

'ETToiroiia Stj koj. t\ ttjs rpaycaSias iroirjcris, en Se Kwiicpdia Kal r) b*i6vpap.fio- 

TTOiriTlKT), Kal T7JS av\T}TlK7}S T) 7rA.fc/<rT7/ Kal KLdaplffTlK7JS t TTaaOU TVyX^OVClV 

ovcrat /wt/UTjaeis to cvvoKov.— Ibid. cap. i. 



75 

shown by our own Chaucer; and Thespis' move- 
ment at the head of his troops, (for observe he was 
likewise leader of a great religious festivity,) was 
in no way at variance with pagan notions of re- 
ligion. Still it is wonderful that tragedy, the 
noblest branch of poetry, should have continually 
sprung" from a source, in which there was evidently 
mingled so much of the ludicrous. Dithyrambus 
(from Vis §v§as aiMt&w, in allusion to the double birth 
of the god, or his having entered the gates of life) 
a name applied to the earliest festive poetry in 
honour of Bacchus, and by extension of meaning 
to the whole festival, was confessedly the origin 
of tragic poetry. But there were three kinds of 
choruses that were sung and accompanied with 
dancing, in the poem called dithyrambus: one of 
men, another of boys, &c. ; for contending in which, 
each of the ten tribes of Attica maintained and 
educated fifty performers. Chcerilus has been be- 
fore mentioned as the first who was styled a tragic 
poet, and for whom the Athenians constructed a 
theatre. Pratinas founded the satyric drama. He 
was contemporary with ./Eschylus. The theatre 
opened in the morning; the spectators brought 
with them their cushions, and even refreshment; 
and plays were acted all day long, each trilogy, or 
suite of three tragedies, being followed by a satyr, 
drama, or farce, till the five judges awarded the 
prizes. Every competitor, before bringing forward 
his pieces, had to submit it to the archon ; if 
he and his assessors judged it worthy of entering 
the lists, a chorus was awarded him at the public 
expense; and the people pitched upon the rich 

jl2 



76 

citizen, who was to defray the expense of the chorus 
performers. Nor did the trouble of the author end 
with composing his plays; he had to instruct the 
players and orchestra players in their rehearsals, 
and not unfrequently he himself took a part in the 
representation. It was held derogatory to no man's 
dignity to appear on the stage at Athens, and she 
counted among her players not merely literary men, 
but public functionaries and commanders of armies. 
From this ambition and contest arose the immense 
wealth of the Attic stage. It ultimately numbered 
two hundred and fifty tragedies of the first class, 
five hundred of the second, and an equal number 
of comedies. Of all that wealth what a wreck 
now remains ! It is true, we have some of the 
works of those writers who are acknowledged to 
have been the master dramatists; but the Greek 
stage teaches no moral more impressively than the 
perishing of human glory, from the records of its 
own devastation. If we believe Plato, the Dio- 
nysiac Theatre could contain thirty thousand spec- 
tators, so that it must have been four hundred and 
fifty feet in diameter. It was built upon the slope 
of a hill, in order to accommodate the spectators 
sitting below, and not requiring much labour to 
form the seats. It is unnecessary to say that such 
an immense building was without cover, nor had the 
Greeks, like the Romans, recourse to temporary 
ones. They had a double portico behind the scene 
to which ; the orchestra, dromos, and stage com- 
posed the interior : and, what is more remarkable, 
almost every device which is known to the modern 
stage, the Greeks are said to have practised ; and 



77 

the dimensions at least were favourable to illus- 
tration. Their Theologeion, a place of the con- 
ference of the gods, must have been an occasional 
scaffold, issuing from near the top of the stage 
building, and surrounded with a picture of clouds. 
Infernal spirits and phantoms are said to have 
ascended from the Charonic steps, at the extremity 
of the orchestra, furthest from the stage, and be- 
neath the lowest seats of the spectators. 

By our sceptical imaginations, the impressions 
made upon the minds of the people by these scenes 
can be but faintly conceived ; yet even a modern 
fancy must be torpid, that, in reading ^Eschylus, is 
not electrified by the ghost of Clytemnestra rushing 
in to awaken Eumenides : and the grandeur and 
terror in spectral agency was, we think, never made 
more perfect, than when the poet invokes " the 
slumbering furies and the sleepless dead." 



AESCHYLUS— A. C. 525—456.* 

Having thus dwelt upon the nature and forma- 
tion of the drama, we now feel ourselves called 
upon to make a few remarks upon those who, in 
consequence of their attention to this particular 
species of writing, are recognised as the dramatists. 



* iEschylus was an excellent poet of Athens, son of Euphorion. 
He was the first who gave a model to tragic verse. Upwards of ninety 
tragedies are supposed to have been written by him, forty of which 
were honoured with the public prize, and but seven have reached us. 
He is said to have been the first who formed two acts, and introduced 
actors on the stage. Very powerful effects are reported to have been 



78 

Of the authors we shall have to include under this 
character, Sophocles, Euripides, and ./Eschylus were 
the three competitors for fame; and happy indeed 
in this circumstance that they were not merely 
rivals in the judgment of posterity, but had the 
peculiar good fortune of being contemporaries, at a 
period when the pretensions of each poet were 
minutely criticised ; and on each occasion, with 
regard to the two former, their claims to merit were 
adjusted, not by a people whose popular applause 
was the approbation of a rude commonalty, but by 
Athenians, no strangers to correct cadence, nor 
tolerating the tuneless endeavours of a mere novice. 
But beyond this the judgment of posterity has 
weight in the accredited testimony of self-acknow- 
ledged rivalship. Aristotle has observed, that both 
tragedy and comedy owe almost their existence to 
the fruitful genius of Homer, the Iliad and the 
Odyssey furnishing subjects and characters for tra- 
gedy, and his poem of Margites for comedy. The 
truth of this remark will recommend itself to every 
one observing the highly tragical scenes which are 



witnessed at the representation of the Eumenides. He has been 
styled by a modern critic of approved talent, the most difficult of the 
Greek classics. The imagination of the poet was full and vigorous, 
but wild and extravagant. An offensive expression or two in his 
writings had nearly cost him his life ; and had he not had the good 
fortune to have been illustrious as a soldier, as well as that of a poet, 
there is no doubt but he would have severely suffered for his impru- 
dence. JEschylus was saved by the timely offices of his brother, who 
uncovered an arm, of which the hand had been cut off in the battle 
of Salamis. The circumstances attending his death are tragical 
enough. He was killed by the fall of a tortoise, which alighted upon 
his bald head when he had withdrawn into the open field, in conse- 
quence of being informed that he was to die by the fall of a house. 



70 

made to characterize his heroes, while, on the other 
hand, that pleasing narration which occasionally 
makes so happy a turn in his metaphor, is highly 
dramatic, inasmuch as it marks the untutored 
eloquence of nature. It was unquestionably from 
nature meditating upon these models, with the mind 
of a philosopher, and the figurative genius of a 
poet, that iEschylus formed the idea of giving to 
tragedy that form which is evident in his works. 
He declared himself that his tragedies were but 
scraps from the magnificent repasts of Homer. 
The improvements he made on the drama were 
these, viz. — instead of one actor, or interlocutor, 
he introduced two upon a stage, adorned with 
scenery corresponding to the situation in which the 
plot was laid. He not only instructed his chorus 
in the dances suitable to the piece, but superin- 
tended and arranged the dresses of the performers. 
He introduced more hurry of action into the drama 
than had formerly been exhibited — marked his cha- 
racters with strong lines of vice and virtue, and 
expressed his conceptions in glowing, figurative, 
and energetic language. In rendering him into 
English, much difficulty is occasioned by his great 
fondness for compound epithets, which manner, 
perhaps, he may have adopted in order to render 
his descriptions the more striking. A certain ob- 
scurity envelopes some of his conceptions, which 
may be attributed to the agitation of a mind wrought 
up to the highest pitch of ardour, and which, under 
the tuition of a more refined taste, would have 
been made elegant and perspicuous. These de- 



80 

fects are evidently the effects of inattention, and 
a certain precedent which every writer must feel 
the want of, in order to direct with economy 
the flow of his own thoughts, as also from his 
imitation of the style of the dithyrambic, which 
was in the highest degree figurative and bombastic, 
from the sentiments of the epopoea, and from the 
natural vigour and elevation of his own mind, 
which indeed could know of no bounds, for want 
of that line of distinction which was afterwards 
drawn, and which has marked out the peculiar 
genius of each poet. That our bard should have 
thus erred, must have been matter of almost un- 
alterable necessity, taking into account the very 
imperfect state in which tragedy was at an early 
period of his life. f Opx»<mKoi, or dancers, being the 
only appellative by which the writers of drama 
were denominated. His Prometheus Vinctus, like 
other of his plays, is replete with prodigies. How- 
ever much light may be thrown upon the fabulous 
details of the early part of his act, by a correct 
understanding of this play, there is something 
highly figurative and expressive in the fate of 
Prometheus, and the sufferings he underwent, in 
consequence of his insolent rebellion against the 
king of the gods. He is fabled as having pilfered 
fire from heaven,* in order to benefit mortals, as 



* Aristophanis Scholiast. Ranis. Hesiod. Opera et Dies, v. 46, et 
Theog. v. 520. 

Nag9r)KOTr\T]p(i>Toy Si ^pa/xai irvgbs 

11777 V KAoiraiav. 

Prometh. \inct. 109. 



81 

also the discoverer, or rather inventor, of letters,* 
which we may characterize in the knowledge of 
good and evil,f which, according" to Moses's ac- 
count, was the advantage held out by the devil to 
our first parents ; and what makes the circumstance 
still more closely resemble that of Scripture his- 
tory, is, that in the same poem the promise of a 
saviour J is made, who is to act in precisely the same 
offices as the poet of Mantua has given to his. 

The change which iEschylus had effected upon 
tragedy, paved the way for greater advancement in 
the hands of Sophocles and Euripides. 



SOPHOCLES— A. C. 497— 406.§ 

The attention of Sophocles was more divided in 
his pursuits than either of his contemporaries, and 
the writing of tragedy he took up at a much later 

* 'AAA' &rep yv(t>/j.r}S rb irav 



"EiTgaffaov, ere 8-/7 <r<piv wtoKols iyk 
'As-pwv e5ei£a rds Te Svaicgilovs Svcreis. 
Kal fx^v apiBfxbv, e£oxov aocpicrfxaTtav, 
'E^evgov avlois, yga^drav tc avvdeaeis, 
MuqjuL7}u & aiidvTmv /xouaofj-rfTop^ ipydrtu. 

Prometh. Virfct. 45G— 461. 
•f- To^oiai KXciubs, 'bs irSvwv 4k twi/8' e'/ue 

Al>(T€l. 

Ibid. 891. 

J ^ 8i8d(TKa\os Te'x^s 



U.dcrr}S $poTO?s ir4<pvve /ecu fieyas ir6pos. 

Ibid. 110. 

§ Sophocles was born at Colonae, in Attica, about 497 a. c. He 
was a pupil of iEschylus, and he studied music and dancing under 
Lamprus. He studied lyric poetry, in which had he persevered 
he would have eminently distinguished himself, as the choruses of 
his tragedies show. He afterwards applied himself to the compo- 
sition of tragedy, and was the rival of Euripides for public praise. 

M 



82 

period of life. Being a military character, be na- 
turally felt a soldier's enthusiasm at the success 
of his country's arms : hence, after the battle of 
Salamis, 480 a. c, he led a chorus of youths around 
a trophy erected in honour of the victory, and at- 
tracted universal attention by the beauty of his 
person, and the music of his lyre. It was in con- 
sequence of the hig-h reputation which iEschylus 
had acquired, that he was induced to change his 
style from that of lyric, and to court tlie tragic 
muse. His first exhibition met with that success 
which must have highly flattered his early pre- 
tensions. The judges, by a plurality of voices, 
gave their suffrages in favour of his poem, in 
preference to that of his tutor. He increased the 
number of actors to three; added that decoration 
to scenery, which, at an after period of the drama, 
became so superb and ornamental. He does not, 
like his powerful rival, anticipate the result of his 
plots, or in any formal prologue present yon with 
the commencement and issue of his subject, which 
Euripides does ; but rather suffers his reader to be 
gently led through the pleasant meanderings of his 
easy and elegant dialogue, till by a continuation of 
imagery and fulness of expression, his style assumes 
the lofty cadence of the epic, so dignified — so sub- 

The AtheniaDS were highly delighted with their contention, and 
each poet had his admirers and adherents. Their rivalship, how- 
ever, terminated in jealousy. Of one hundred and twenty tragedies 
which have been attributed to him, the Ajax, Electra, (Edipus the 
Tyrant, Antigone, Trachinian Virgins, Philocietes, and (Edipus at 
Colonus, only remain. He wrote for the stage until a late period of 
his life, which was protracted unusually long. He died in the ninety- 
first year of his age, 400 a. c. 



83 

lime — the events which occur and characters which 
appear upon the face of his horizon, swell in high 
tone his native elegance. Animation seems to have 
been his tutelar deity, and so happily to have 
plumed the pinions of his muse with that anxious 
suspense, which, having* longed for the final catas- 
trophe, finds in it a tribute of grateful melody. 
Of the seven which fortunately survived the wreck 
of time, one above the rest has been honoured ; for 
it was his (Edipus Colonus, which repelled the 
charge brought against him by his unnatural chil- 
dren, who, wearied of the longevity of the old man, 
wished for early possession of his wealth, and to 
this effect accused him of imbecility of mind : and 
honourable indeed it is to the testimony of those 
judges, who have allowed this to be the memorial 
of our poet's victory. 



EURIPIDES— A. C. 479— 407 * 

At this period such was the public taste for 
tragedy, that it was preferred by Euripides to that 
of eloquence and philosophy, it being a safer and 
more expeditious road to popular favour. He early 



* Euripides is said to have been born at Salamis, not far from the 
mouth of the river Euripus, on the day on which the rejoicings took 
place for the defeat of Xerxes, 479 a. c. As to his family, it will for 
ever remain a question whether it was illustrious or not. He is said 
by Aristophanes to have been the son of a poor woman who sold 
herbs, but this was but the evidence of a comic poet, and an enemy. 
He studied rhetoric under Prodicus, the Chian, and philosophy under 
Anaxagoras, and was intimately acquainted with * Socrates, many of 
whose doctrines he imbibed. Having left his own country, he became 

M2 



84 

distinguished himself; for at the age of eighteen 
we find him writing for the stage, and soon after 
entered the list as the acknowledged rival of So- 
phocles. His latter days were embittered by that 
unhappy calamity which made Athens full of frenzy, 
being persecuted by those of his country to whom 
he might have given cause of offence, or, more 
probably, who felt risings of envy at the popularity 
of the poet. He left his country and found pro- 
tection in the court of one Archelaus. In Euri- 
pides we have neither the energy and sublimity 
of iEschylus, nor the stateliness and dignity of 
Sophocles. He is simple and elegant ; and critics 
have observed, that he is not much elevated above 
the one of genteel conversation. It may be well 
to note a few instances^ from some of his plays 
which are more generally read, and whose claims 
to merit are undoubted. Jason promises Medea, 
when departing from her, that he would send her 
the symbols of hospitality, which should procure to 
her a safe reception in foreign countries.* These 



familiar with Archelaus, king of Macedon, his end was calamitous, 
being torn in pieees it is said by the king's dogs, 407 a. c. The 
Athenians, as their custom was, persecuted every man of talent during 
his life, and honoured him after his death : hence they sent for the 
body of Euripides, to have the honour of erecting a tomb for it : but 
this request being denied by Archelaus, who himself caused a mag- 
nificent tomb to be erected near his capital, on the banks of a pleasant 
stream. They raised a cenotaph to his memory. Euripides lived to 
the age of seventy-eight years. He wrote seventy-five tragedies, of 
which nineteen only are extant. 



* EeVoty T€ ire/Airey crvfj.&oK' ot Spdcrovcri a ev. 

Med. 613. 






85 
were mutual presents and gifts, called {{»<«, or $z§* 

^ivioc, WlllCn KBt^rtKioc rois 'uxockxioTs <zzj£TiQevTo sis a,vtX[/.vnQiv <nx- 

rpZxs pixiets roh Ivtyovois, were deposited by the ancient 
Greeks amongst their treasures, to keep up the 
memory of their friendship to succeeding genera- 
tions, as we are informed by the comment of Eus- 
tathius : and to this effect does Homer also write.* 
The servant of Abraham also, when he went to 
take a wife for Isaac, presented Rebecca with ear- 
rings and bracelets.*)* But this was in all proba- 
bility but to cool the rising resentment of his wife, 
whom he had unhappily excited by his marriage 
with Glauce ; and this connexion he palliates under 
the idea of preserving his divorced wife Medea and 
her family •$ since being in a foreign country, their 
safety was guaranteed by no other laws than civility. 
But Medea, in very strong terms, deprecates his 
intention, and premises the woful altercations which 
must inevitably arise in his family by his marriage 
with the king's daughter. It runs thus : 

"Oh, my children — my children — hither: take a last leave 
of our once social home ! Hasten from hence, and supplicate 
your father; that he may avert that bitterness which is nigh at 
hand, that ye may in the place make friends for your mother: 
for these my libations, which in great anguish of soul I have 
mingled, are for you. Oh my children ! press my hand — be it 



£eivos Trarp&los io~o~i iraAcuds. 

Iliad. g t 215. 



t Gen. xxiv. 

E3 vvv r68* VcrBi, ^ yvvaiubs ovveica, 
Trjuai fie Aeicrpa jSacnAeeus a vvv ex&>. 
'AAA.' Sxnrep elirov nal ndpos, auxrai iS-eAcov 
2e, /cat t4kvol<ti to?s kfiois SfMoa-rrSgois. 
Qvcrou Tvpdvves vraTdas, zgvfxa dwfxacri. 

Med. 593-507. 



86 

the testimony of my heart : but woe is me, for the evils I 
endure : I think of the cares that burden my mind — but ye, 
the solace of my life. Alas! long time have we participated 
in each other's joys ; and shall it be that still you shall seek 
the support of that arm, in which you were wont to recline* 
and which have so often guarded your infant slumbers. Oh, 
unhappy woman that I am ! for having but just recovered 
from a long weeping, fears gather about my mind : for indeed 
it is in consequence of the unhappy dispute, in which at this 
time I am unhappily involved with your father, that my features 
betray the vehemence of my sorrowing."* 

I have endeavoured to give the sentiments of the 
poet in this translation ; but that fine sympathetic 
ardour, which is so eminently his own, loses con- 
siderably in this rendering*. It may be observed 
that in the rhapsodies of Euripides, nothing' very 
astounding and sublime frequently swells his ca- 
dence ; thus it might appear less difficult to render 
our poet, possessing a taste tuned to every harmo- 
nious and social aberration, and in no way wanting 
of that native vigour, which is the fruitful imagery 
of every kindred tie. Hence the curses he invokes 
upon the head of Medea, she having slain his 



* T H reKva, reKva, Seu7e, \dne1e s-4yas. 
'E^4\6eT } acrirderacrde /cot irpoaeiTraTe 
Tlalepa /xeff tj/jloop, /col diaWaxBytf &pa 
T?}S irp6<rdev exfyas €ts (piAois fiyrphs fxera. 
^iropSal yag r)u7v, /col fieOecrJ^Kev x < ^©'* 
Adfieo-Qe X el g^ s $*&"■*' dtjxoi kcucwv: 
'Sis ivj/oovfxat 8% ri r£v KtKpvuixivwv. 
'Ap' 3> t4kv, office Kai iroXhv £idvres xp^vov t 
&'i\t)v opel-tT w\4vr)V ; raXaiv* iyh, 
Tls apliSaKpvs el/j.i Kal <p6fiov irAea. 
Xpovcp 5e veiKos iraTpbs i£aipovfi4vri, 
"0\pip Tepdvrju T^vlT eirXrjera-a daKpvcov. 

Med. 894—905. 



87 

children, and which our own Byron has imitated 
with wonderful effect. 

Oh wretch ! without a tear, without a thought, 
Save joy about the ruin thou hast wrought.* 

And in another passage, by the same character in 
the play : 

O may the strong curse of crush'd affection light, 
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight.-j- 



Thy name, thy human name, to every eye, 
The climax of all scorn, shall hang on high ; 
Exalted far above thy less abhorr'd compeers, 
And festering in the infamy of years.:}: 



He has been accused (and not without justice, 
observes Professor Dunbar) of want of skill in 
arranging 1 his plots, as many of the incidents that 
occur in his dramas are not brought about in the 
usually natural course of events, and do not proceed 
from obvious and sufficient causes, but are fre- 
quently unconnected with the preceding part of 
the action, and sometimes occasioned by the in- 
terposition of superior powers. However, these 
observations cannot extend to the last quoted sen- 
timents of the drama. The vehemence and energy 
of utterance which flow from the lips of the 
avenging Jason, are evidently the effect of an 
highly wrought indignation : seeing tKe corse of 
his lately espoused wife, and the mangled remains 
of his children, scattered upon the earth, as it were 

* Medea, 1320. t Ibid. 1310. X Ibid. 1343. 



88 

the horrid exuviae of an infernal female ; in Jason's 
case it would be piety to invoke the furies of the 
sleepless dead, and to rain back ou her devoted 
head a wallowing- cursed ire. Again — what can 
be more beautiful and sentimental than the words 
which our poet puts into the mouth of Orestes, 
when indulging in the pleasing recollection of the 
many kind offices and parental marks of early af- 
fection received from his grandmother and grand- 
father, and contrasting them with the unnatural 
character he now wore, as the murderer of his 
mother Clytemnestra ? 

" Which (says he) having perpetrated, I am ashamed to be 
seen by him, O Menelaus, who cherished me when a little one, 
and loaded me with every kind endearment, carrying about the 
child of Agamemnon in his arms, and who, together with Leda, 
loved me equally with Dioschorus."* 

Aristotle has observed, "that there are two causes, 
and those natural ones, which altogether form a 
poet. For, as in childhood, it is also natural for us 
to imitate, and in this manner these remarks may 
be made of all living, since nature itself possesses 
a strong imitative power, and the first steps to 
knowledge are made by imitation, for ail men 
naturally love imitation : and the truth of this is 

* ' Pi.TTti}\6fir]v Me^eAae, TvvSdoeoos ode 

Sretx 64 7r £^ s W& s > °v AtaAtoV a<5u>s /*' exet 
Ei's u/j./jLaT' iXdeiv roicriv i^eigya(r/j.4uois. 
Kal ya§ fi eflpe^e jxiKohv ovra, TroXKa 8e 
$i\i)lAaT i^€7r\rjae, rbu ' A-yafiefiuopos 
Ila'S' ayKoXouai irepKpepwu, Ar)8cf. d' ap.a 
Ti/xwv T€ ju' ovShv ficcrou, ij Aioaieovpa). 

Orestes, 460—466. 



89 

evident, since this faculty of imitation impregnates 
every other performance, for the object itself we 
look upon with pain."* And in another place he 
says — " Therefore the customs, &c. affecting" the 
tragedy should form our imitation, (namely fable, 
manners, sense and diction, representation and 
melody,) indeed to adorn the appearance of it is of 
great necessity, whether it be in melody or diction, 
for indeed in these points poets should imitate. 
And shall 1 speak of diction, for this is the com- 
position of all metres ? and of melody, for the 
power of this is manifest in every verse ? A tra- 
gedy should be composed of six parts, namely — the 
fable, the customs and manners, the sensation, 
diction, representation, and melody. Tragedy is 
not the imitation of men, but of actions, of life, 
both of happiness and misery ; for happiness or 
misery depend upon, or exist in our actions, and 
the action or energy of virtue is the end of virtue, 
not the quality. According to the doctrine of 
Aristotle, the summum bonum, or end of life, con- 
sisted in virtuous energies; not in virtue considered 
merely in the light of an internal habit, disposition, 
or quality of the mind. And without action there 
would be no tragedy, neither without manners could 
it exist ; since tragedy is the uncouth relation of 
all new affairs and prominent features of life.* 
The Phoenissae opens with a short biography which 
Jocasta is made to give of herself, invoking Helios 
as the tutelar deity to her testimony. She passes 
over the incidents of her childhood, and hurries on 

* Aristot. de Poetica, iv. t Ibid. 18. 

N 



90 

to the tragical events of after life. Eteocles having" 
ascended the throne of Thebes, defrauded his bro- 
ther Polynices in his share of the kingdom ; and 
Poly n ices having fled to Argos, married Argia, the 
daughter of Adrastus ; and being fired with an am- 
bition of reigning, he returned into his own country, 
and having prevailed upon his father-in-law, he 
levied a great force against his brother at Thebes, 
and Jocasta his mother confederated with him that 
he should enter the city ; and he was incensed at 
the tyranny of Eteocles : indeed Jocasta was unable 
to bring about a reconciliation between the two 
brothers, and thus Polynices, having made ready 
for a fight, returned to the city } and Tiresias gave 
out that should Menoixes, or Moncetes, the son of 
Creon, become victim to the god Mars, that the 
strife would end in favour of the Thebans. Creon 
consequently forbid his child's going to the war, 
but he nevertheless was impelled to disobey the 
injunctions of his sire \ therefore Creon having 
given him his possessions, bid him fly : but he slew 
himself. Moreover, the Thebans slew the leaders 
of the Greeks, and the two brothers fighting in 
single combat slew each other. After that, the 
mother having heard of the death of her two 
sons, Eteocles and Polynices, slew herself; and the 
brother Creon ascended the vacant throne of Thebes. 
The Greeks being conquerors retired from the field, 
but Creon with difficulty restrained himself, for he 
entertained a hatred towards them, and would not 
allow burial to those of the Greeks who fell in the 
engagement ; Eteocles also he deprived of burial. 
But (Edipus he banished from the country, ob- 



91 

serving no humanity for them : he vented upon 
them cruel dealing-, neither did he grieve for their 
misfortunes. The answer of the oracle to Lai us 
was the following : — 

•"' O Laius, son of Labdaius, dost thou demand a happy 
offspring ? I will give thee one, a dear son ; but s the des- 
tinies have determined that thou shouldst quit the light of 
heaven by the hands of thine own child ; for to this Jove, son 
of Saturn, assented, having been induced to this at the cruel 
sacrifice of Pelops, he having slain his own child, and prayed 
these things upon thee."* 

Which was brought about at the solution of the 
enigmaf of the Sphinx by (Edipus. Such was the 
hatred which existed between the two brothers, 
that their very ashes are said to have separated, as 
if sensible of their hostility when living. This 
idea, however, is but a licence granted to the 
imagination of any poet. Nevertheless, the poet 
personifies the death of the furies in that of Eteocles 
and Polynices.J Tiresias,§ the prophet, who is in- 

* Vide 'Virtdecris ad Phenissam. 

•j- ^Ecrrt Uttovp iirl yrjs, Kai rerpdnoy, ov fit a (pwvij, 
Kal rpiirov aKAdcrcrei Se (pvijv jx6vov, SoV iirl yaiav 
'Epirera Kiveirai, ava t' al&ega, Kal Kara, it6vtov. 
'AAA.' dirdrav TrM6veffcnv igetSofxevov irocrl fSalpTf, 
y £j/fra rdxos yvloicrtv a<pavp6raroy ireAet avrov. 

if Tlaialv OlSiirov tpepwv 
UrjfAouav 'Epivptiuv. 

Pheniss. 261—262. 

§ 'HyoS irpoirdpoiOe frvyarep, us rv(p\u iroSl 
'0<p6a\/xbs el av, vavrlXounv &<rrpov us 
Aevp' e*s rb Aevpbu irediov lx vos ridcie' e/nbv, 
Ugdfiaiue, jx^ (TtpaKu/xev aa-eev^s irarfip. 

Ibid. 848—851. 

N2 



92 

troduced in the course of the play, as calling to his 
daughter* " to become an eye to his foot and a star 
to the mariners," (for observe he was punished 
with blindness by Juno, in consequence of an un- 
fortunate decision,) may be recognised in the pro- 
phetic and weeping Jeremiah, perhaps not in a 
manner the least striking in his having foretold 
the fate of Laius and (Edipus, since Tiresias was an 
infallible oracle to all Greece during those and the 
preceding reigns ; and Jeremiah foretold the cala- 
mities of Bedekiah — the former king put out his 
own eyes — while the other was deprived of them 
by another. Towards the middle of the play the 
scene becomes very tragical, and more perfectly 
so than has hitherto appeared. Jocasta bids her 
daughter Antigone approach the plain where her 
two sons were contending, f It is here, namely, 
at the return of Jocasta, that Euripides appears in 
his own character— it is here where he luxuriates 
— here he is at home ; — the tears that teem down 
the cheeks of either — the sympathy evinced — the 
piercing groans of both at the meeting of the 
mother and daughter, could only be expressed by 
the persuasive eloquence of our sensitive bard. 
The high degree of excitement in which the mind 
of Jocasta was placed, appears fully in verses im- 
mediately following the last quoted. Her anxiety 
appears to have arisen from a desire to know the 



* Manto. 

•f- 'IOK. "Eirety, e-rreiye, Qvyareg' ws tfv fxkv <pdd(ru 
ricuSas 7rpb Aoyxvs, oi/fxbs kv <pdei fiios. 

Phcen. 1295—1296. 



issue of that fatal contention. Alas! alas! alas! 
alas! my very soul trembles with horror.* The 
scene shortly becomes awfully changed ; the two 
brothers fall each the murderer of his fellow — the 
messenger or angel is made to utter that rage which 
a little since agitated the minds of the women, in 
plaintive despair. 

" Bury me, (says one)f my child ! and thou, my kindred 
friend, perform this last pious act ! in my own native earth, 
and assuage the grief of the lamenting city ; for how great 
trouble have I unhappily brought upon my country : for, alas, 
I have destroyed my whole family ! Close thou mine eyelids 
with thine own hand, O my mother ! let it be thine, O my 
mother, to place the weight upon mine eyes V'% 

It is, indeed, no honour to the chaste and vir- 
tuous character which Antigone is made to possess, 
that she twice reminds the self-avenging CEdipus 
of his fatal error, § and the (unalterable) cause of 



XO. A?, at, at, at, rpo/xepau (ppiicav, 
Tpofiepav (ppeva eX w ' 

-f OZdipus. 

Phcen. 1298—1299. 
£ Ga^ou 8e fi S> reicovcra, Kal av crvyyove, 
'Eu yrj irarpua' Kal tt6\ij/ Ov/xov^vrjv 
Tlap-fiyopeTrow ws roaduSe 8^ Tt$x« 
XQovbs irarpcaas, Kei 86/xovs aTr&Ksaa. 
"Ewdpfioaov 8e fi\4<pagd /xov ttj crrj X e P^> 
Mareg (^rlOrfcri 8' avrbs o/xfiaTuv eiri) 
Kal xafy>eT\ tfdr) ydp /te iregifidWti (Tk6tos. 

Ibid. 1467. 
§ ■■ 'O <rbs a\ds-(t>p 



s,i(pecriu fipidwis. ■ 

Ibid. 1572. 

*H irdrfg, ts ravra tcAcutS. 

Ibid. 1597. 



94 

all his woes. But perhaps the most tragical of all 
the scenes introduced into the play, is the appear- 
ance of Eteocles in the form of a spectre or spirit to 
Jocasta,* which in the eye of her frantic imagina- 
tion she distinctly recognizes. The doleful strains 
of this melancholy maid, as our own Young ex- 
presses himself — 

"Whom dismal scenes delight, 
Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of night- 
are if possible swelled still higher in the appeal 
of Iphigenia. This is relating to a letter Aga- 
memnon tells his confidential companion to prevent 
the coming of Iphigenia, his daughter, for whom 
he had sent, (at the instigation of Menelaus and 
the prophet Chalcas, who affirmed that Troy could 
not be taken without the aid of Achilles and the 
sacrifice of Iphigenia, and the death of the pro- 
phet was foretold as soon as another appeared his 
superior in wisdom, which took place in Mopsus,) 
under the pretence of affiancing her to Achilles, 
but in reality to sacrifice her to Diana. He had 
since repented, it appears, of that consent, and bids 
the messenger speed with the preventative epistle. 
The letter is intercepted by Menelaus, and a grievous 
dispute takes place between the two royal brothers. 
It may be guessed with what emotion the mother 
and daughter the second time appeared before 
Agamemnon, who in the struggle (unwilling to 
make the sacrifice) between ambition and the more 
persuasive feelings of nature, has also to endure the 

• Vide Phoen. 1093. 



terrors of Clytemnestra's remonstrances, the po- 
tency of her logic, and the piercing* transports of 
maternal grief. The words of Iphigenia are still 
more affecting than those of her mother. 

"Would that I had the voice of Orpheus, (she says) to 
persuade you, oh my father ! but saving these tears I have no 
eloquence to offer. Ah, let me not die in the freshness of my 
life! sweet is the light of heaven — let me not see what is 
beneath. I was the first who called you father — I was the first 
whom you called your child— the first whom you caressed on 
your knees— the first who returned the caresses of childhood. 
It was then that you were wont to say — Shall I one day behold 
thee, my daughter, happily married in thine husband's house ? 
1 replied with my cheek on thine — Yes, my father, I shall one 
day receive him in mine own house when he is grown old, and 
cheer him with every kindly office. Look upon me — give me 
a kiss, my father." 

The natural force of this passage needs no trans 
fusion into verse. 

Euripides, though commonly reported to have 
been an enemy to the fair sex, seems to have pre- 
ferred them to men in the composition of a chorus : 
for of his twenty tragedies, fifteen are furnished in 
this manner; and of the remaining five, only one 
is a satyric piece, and the chorus of course of satyrs. 
In two only of the seven of Sophocles is there a 
chorus of women, whilst the like number of plays by 
iEschylus furnishes three with a chorus of women, 
and two more of females, and those of a superna- 
tural order — in one the Furies — the other nymphs, 
daughters of Oceanus. The average length of a 
tragedy of Euripides, omitting the Cyclops and 
Rhesus, is 1440 verses ; many of which, written 



D6 

in lyrical measures, are very short. Those of So- 
phocles exceed this standard by thirty lines. Of 
the seven of iEschylus, all but the Agamemnon* 
which is one of the longest remaining tragedies, 
as it contains 1695 verses, (Edipus at Colonus and 
the Phcenissa? having each 1779 fall short of the 
average of the other two tragedies. They are 
of nearly the same length — viz. 1100 verses. 

The tragedies of Euripides are remarkable for 
their prologues, which are introductions, or argu- 
ments, or openings of the pleading, spoken by the 
principal character, or at least by a person of some 
importance in the piece. They have been hu- 
mourously compared to the labels on the mouths of 
the old pictures. They are, however, interesting 
remains of original and pristine tragedy, which 
consisted of narratives introduced amongst the 
choral ceremonies, and are of transcendent beauty. 
The longest we have consists of eighty-five verses ; 
the average length is not more than sixty. Sopho- 
cles has for the most part omitted this introduction, 
but that the omission was not the want of skill, 
but through choice, is demonstrated by the ex- 
quisite prologue of forty-eight verses, that ushers 
in the dramatic history of the apotheosis of Her- 
cules, which he has executed in the Trachinise with 
a glory and majesty worthy of him and his hero. 
But iEschylus is equally divided between the omis- 
sion and the admission of the prologue. The long 
speeches of the messengers, who at the conclusion 
of the tragedy frequently relate the catastrophe of 
the piece, are a distinguished feature of the Greek 
theatre, and a relic of the old theatrical praxis, 



07 

which operated entirely by narration, in the pre- 
sence and with the consent and warranty of the 
chorus. In summing up our evidence on the 
pretensions of Sophocles and Euripides, the words 
of Aristotle will be conclusive. He said^that 

" TotpoHXys ifyn, otvTos (ji.lv olovs $e7 rtoteTv, TLugnriSris $e, otot ekti." 

Sophocles made men as they ought to be, Euripides 
as they are* 



CHAP. VIII. 

COMEDY. 

Buried as Athens was at this period in feasts and 
festival shows, and active in all the exuberance of 
sportive fancy, it is not to be wondered that minds, 
whose prolific resources dictated sentiments in 
native elegance and taste, could remain inactive 
upon occasions when the wild and giddy imagi- 
nation was incited by the novelty of these exhi- 
bitions : rather than this they suffered the vein of 
raillery and humour to flow satirically in every 
foible or weakness of character. These ludicrous 
attacks would for some time form a great part of 
the amusements of these village festivities, and 
give a relief to the superstitious ceremonies of these 
occasions. We may speak of Attica as the native 
soil of this species of wantonness ; and it is evident 
that this, like other gusts of natural inventions, 
must be in existence and pass through several 
successive stages of refinement, prior to its be- 
coming a digested composition. 





98 



EPICHAllMUS AND ARISTOPHANES. 

Epicharmus was a Pythagorean, a native of 
Sicily, about 450 years a. c. He is said to have 
introduced the drama into the capital ; and under 
the modelling of Plautus, his first imitator, Eu- 
polis, Cratinus, and lastly, and most worthily so, 
of Aristophanes, it grew into repute. It may be 
worthy of observation, that whenever Aristotle 
speaks of comedy, it is of the middle or old comedy, 
which was no other than what we should term 
farce, and to which his definition of comedy was 
adapted — plt*ms <p*vkorifuv, an imitation of ridiculous 
characters. The origin and nature of comedy is 
further evident from the circumstance, that the 
common occurrences of the neighbourhood were 
called Ku^as ; and this sort of verse not according 
well with the more refined taste of Athens, was 
called AnfA,o VS * and was banished from hence : but 
after a rustication of two or three years, was again 
received into this arena of elegance. The rebuff 
which comedy met with from the Athenians might, 
in the first instance, be owing to the coarseness of 
the Doric dialect, or perhaps more probably the 
unceremonious manner in which its writers were 
accustomed to pourtray the follies and vices of 
every object of their attack, since under these 
circumstances it would not be a favourite at court. 
Hence it must have been after its periods had been 
considerably rounded and become more accommo- 

* Aristot. de Arte Poet. lib. iii. 



99 

dating to the public feeling", that Megara, a neigh- 
bouring- city, could have obtained a name for the 
cultivation of this species of verse. The names of 
Chionis and Magnes are associated with the early 
state of comedy ; but as we have before observed, 
in compliment to the merits of Aristophanes, that 
he alone deserves the name of a comic poet, we 
shall not detail the casual merits of other writers 
of comedy. Both the parentage and place of the 
nativity of this author are unknown, but Egina 
is generally allowed to have had the honour of 
giving him birth. Aristotle speaks in a very re- 
spectful manner of the merits of Aristophanes ; in 
fact he was with the ancients what Menander was 
with the moderns. His style is rich and free, 
graced in Attic elegance. His pen was not always 
used upon the most prudent and irreproachable 
causes, neither did the virulency of his satire always 
retain the equilibrium between the liberty given 
him as a comic writer, and the restraints laid upon 
him as to the due observance of truth. Hence in 
his Nubes we find him ridiculing the venerable 
person and learned efforts of Socrates. " This at- 
tack,' ' says an eminent author, " upon a man, not 
more distinguished for the correctness of his moral 
conduct, than the purity and excellence of his phi- 
losophical opinions, affixes a stigma to the character 
of the poet, which no sophistry can ever efface, 
since Aristophanes could not be so blind as to 
confound the doctrines of that philosopher with 
the dogmas of the sophists. " It may, however, be 
observed with regard to our poet, that what at an 
earlier period were deemed extravagances, are now 

o2 



100 

looked upon as peculiar traits of beauty. The idea 
which we are led to form of the drama is this : 
that it is a kind of composition originally intended 
and adapted for a state of society in which reading" 
is not a general accomplishment of the people. It 
demands brevity of expression and concentration of 
j>arts, as among its first requisites; it trusts much 
to the aid of apparatus; and much more to the 
ready imaginations of persons excited during a 
brief space by external stimulants : and although 
it has been fortunate enough to be the vehicle of 
the very highest genius, and also of the very highest 
art that the annals of poetry have to display, it 
seems impossible not to admit, that it hopes in 
vain to advance in power and popularity with the 
growing intelligence of the people at large. The 
dramatic masterpieces of Greece were all produced 
within the limits of almost a single age; and 
that by no means the age in which there was the 
greatest number of Greek readers in the world. 

Mr. Bohtz, author of a dissertation on the Ranee 
of Aristophanes, remarks, that this comedy was 
intended to expose the degeneracy of the poets of 
his age, and the falling off of the people in matters 
of taste; and that Euripides and iEschylus are 
only introduced to draw a striking parallel between 
the poetry of his times and the ancient poetry, and 
to remind the people that they were themselves 
inferior to the M»§a9moi/.axot of iEschylus ; and he 
conceives that Bacchus, with sensuality and flip- 
pancy, dressed in the lion's skin and armed with 
the club, is merely a hit at the Athenians them- 
selves. Aristophanes had, therefore, in the Ranee 



101 



the same object in view with regard to poetry, as 
he had in the Nuhes with regard to philosophy. 



CHAP. IX. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

To form an abstract of the science of philosophy 
is almost as unbecoming' as the attempt is futile. 
To do justice to this part of our subject would 
require a long and elaborate treatise, and more 
erudition than we would wish to arrogate. How- 
ever, apart from the offence on the one hand, and 
our acknowledged inefficiency on the other, we 
stand pledged to give a synoptical view of the 
science of philosophy ; and in so doing must con- 
tent ourselves with making a few remarks on the 
doctrines of Socrates, (who may with propriety be 
styled the father of Greek philosophy,) together 
with a few observations on the two most distin^ 
guished, yet inferior to their great master, 

SOCRATES.* 

Perhaps Xenophon in his Memorabilia has pre- 
served more of what may be termed authentic 



* Soerates was contemporary with Pericles, Alcibiades, Xenophon, 
and Hippocrates. Anaxagoras was his tutor. He was born 469, and 
died 399, a. c. three years subsequent to the Peloponnesian war. He 
paved the way for Aristotle, (384 a. c.) in giving the physical sciences 
a proper direction. 



" 102 

accounts of Socrates, than any other writer. He 
felt all that filial sympathy and pious indignation 
which must arise in the mind of a pupil like our 
historian, when hearing and witnessing of the base 
and unjust treatment of his master. He, whose 
lectures pointed at the folly and vice of the age in 
which he lived, which with a severe sarcasm 
marked their errors and censured the vices of ruling 
powers, could not fail to be the object at whom 
they pointed revenge. Plato, in his Dialogues, 
has in several instances introduced Socrates laying 
open his system of philosophy, and instructing his 
disciples in the principles of his art. It may be 
remarked that the relations of Xenophon are more 
correct than those of his fellow pupil. 

The doctrine of Socrates appears to have been 
formed more from observation and experience, than 
from a strict adherence to any theory. He was in 
every sense of the term a social and instructive 
philosopher. His knowledge of men and manners 
arose in a great measure from the casual, but fre- 
quent colloquies, which in his walks he would 
enter into. Apt to teach, he thought no man too 
mean ; ready to instruct, he only valued his own 
attainments as they were capable of benefiting the 
world. The manner which he adopted when giving 
his instructions, was of all others perhaps the 
most likely to advance the true interests of his 
science : not confining himself to a rostrum or public 
theatre, he scattered his well-digested axioms where 
they most evidently applied themselves to the 
common circumstances of life ; consequently the 
ridicule to which the comic poet Aristophanes has 



103 

unwisely subjected him, in his play of The Clouds, 
is without meaning*. He had no regular resort for 
his pupils. Mr. Dunbar observes, that " the mode 
of reasoning which Socrates employed, was by pro- 
posing a series of questions to the person with 
whom he conversed, which by a regular, though 
sometimes circuitous, induction of facts, led to con- 
sequences which completely established his opinion. " 
By advancing a few simple and obvious truths as 
the ground of his arguments, to which his antago- 
nists yielded their assent, he obliged them by 
analogical reasoning skilfully adapted to the sub- 
ject, to admit others equally certain, but not so 
clear and self-evident. In this species of rea- 
soning Socrates excelled, since it required acute- 
ness, accuracy, and an intimate acquaintance with 
the minutiae of his science. In the hands of Soc- 
rates, philosophy answered the description given of 
it by the Roman writer — Philosophia mater omnium 
bonarum artium, erudit, fyc, since his whole aim 
was to make mankind wise, that they might con- 
sequently be better — to exalt the mind, by repre- 
senting the folly of vice and the meanness of an 
indulgence in the sordid pleasure of the appetite. 
His own exalted thoughts and conceptions (for his 
ideas are grand and sublime at times) borrow a 
fresh dignity in viewing the occupations of society 
in general, although he, in his own superior excel- 
lence, drinks of that pure stream of letters which 
always nourishes, never satisfies ; and happily in- 
dulges, but to produce a craving more acute. 
Cicero observes of him, that " he was the first who 
called out philosophy from the obscurity in which 



104 

it had been involved by nature itself, in which all 
philosophers before him occupied themselves, and 
which he applied to the common circumstances of 
life, as also concerning' morality and vice, and in- 
stituted every thing- of a bad or good tendency to 
make subject of dispute."* The reasoning" of Soc- 
rates was ever suited to the capacity or bias of the 
individual. With those who in candour and sin- 
cerity opposed his doctrines, he was the demagogue 
with all his theory and technicalities ; but with the 
sophists and those opinionated reasoners, who, com- 
pletely wedded to their own system, boast in an 
unerring principle, he uses irony and ridicule with 
happy effect. His conversation, says his biogra- 
pher, always turned upon human affairs. In them 
he discussed what was virtuous — what impious — 
what was honourable — what dishonourable — what 
was wise — what unwise : and rarely was he known 
to swerve from the doctrine he held out to the world. 
"The man," says Xenophon, "whose memoirs 
I have written, was so pious that he undertook 
nothing without asking counsel of the gods ; so 
just, that he never did the smallest injury to any 
man, but rendered essential services to many ; so 
temperate, that he never preferred pleasure to virtue; 
and so wise, that he was able in the most difficult 
cases to judge without advice of what was expedient 
and right." Notwithstanding the high eulogy 
passed upon the merits of our philosopher, some 

* Primus a rebus occultis et ab ipsa natura involutis, in quibus 
omnes ante eum philosophi occupati fuerant, evocavit philosophiam 
et ad vitam communem, adduxit ut de virtutibus et vitiis omnino : 
de bonis rebus et malis quaereret. — Tusc. Quest, lib. i. cap. 3. 



105 

are wont to find a flaw in his virtues, in the cir- 
cumstance of his having" expressed himself warmly 
towards an attendant, perhaps a disciple or a friend, 
who in his last moments very affectionately con- 
cerned himself ahout the funeral rites of his dying 
master. The reply of Socrates seemed to chastise 
the unmanly concern of an individual, who could 
so far stoop from the higher offices of the soul, as 
to evince one anxious thought about the comfort- 
able repose of the body. We are, however, in 
deference to the opinions of others, who may judge 
more nicely on this point, led to conceive that the 
reproof was not out of place ; nor did it indicate 
any thing like passion on the part of the speaker. 
Socrates felt that noble elevation of soul which 
esteems the body as but the sordid creature of ap- 
petite, which holds in fetters the loftier aspirations 
of the mind. His custom was to naturalize every 
thing which to him became the subject of philo- 
sophical deduction. Thus, with regard to his body 
he saw its approximation to the earth ; nor did he 
regard that as honourable, which in life was the 
severest scourge he felt, to the attainment of the 
true yood. It is well known, that his marriage 
with one of the most worthless of her sex, was to 
correct his natural bias of temper. 

That our philosopher should become the martyr 
to a tyrannical faction in the state: — that he should 
become the subject of ridicule to a licentious poet — 
are facts in themselves no way to be wondered at. 
He who by his virtues and wisdom distinguished 
himself above the commonality, would be more 
liable to their resentment than the man who could 

p 



106 

connive at, and indulge in, the corrupt manners of 
the times. The shafts of his indignation were 
openly directed against the vicious usurpers of his 
country's freedom. He had learned to hate vice 
from principle : he therefore loudly and in bitter 
terms deprecated the immoralities of his country- 
men. With regard to the writings of Socrates, few 
observations can be made to answer any critical 
end : they come under the general character of the 
philosophers of his period. Couched in Attic ele- 
gance, he formed the purity of his style in his 
simplicity of narration and the easy combination of 
the natural flow of his idea. 

Plato, in one of his dialogues, has represented 
Socrates as expressing himself in high terms of 
satisfaction with the encomiums which he received 
from the people, and the high respect which was 
paid to him in an harangue of one of the orators 
of his time. "The gravity of the speech/' con- 
tinues Socrates, "affected me for more than three 
days ; both the speech and cadence of the orator 
penetrated with such an harmonious sound my ears, 
that scarcely till the fourth or fifth day could I 
remember myself, or could I determine whether it 
was earth I inhabited. I was at times induced to 
suppose that I inhabited the islands of the blest."* 
It, however, detracts much from the credit of his 
pupil, that his veracity should be called in question. 
In his remarks on the doctrines of Socrates, Plato 
is well known to have adulterated them with his 
own peculiar tenets. There is one passage in 

* Plato, lib. ii. Dial, inter Socrat. et Men ex. 



107 

Socrates which has come under our observation, 
as affording a ground from a pagan writer for a 
more modern custom of praying for the dead. 
When speaking of the valour of his forefathers, 
the ancient Greeks, and alluding to the Eleusian 
war, he says — " It behoveth us to have a mind for 
those who died in battle, and to reconcile them as 
we can, (speaking of their souls,) and with prayers 
and sacrifices for those who have been slain, since 
we are to be changed/ 7 * In justice to Socrates 
we may observe, that few men have left behind 
them a reputation more unsullied by private or 
political errors, or a name around which the union 
of virtue and talent must shed a brighter halo of 
unclouded fame. 



PLATO— 430— 348, A. C.f 

To subject Plato to any rules of criticism as a 
man in point of character, would be a futile at- 
tempt, taking into consideration the little evidence 



• Xp)] 8e Kat twv ev Toircp tw iroXefup TeKevrrjadvToev xm aXkf)\wv fiveiav 
ex*iv, Kal dia.Wa.TTwv avrbus & Bwd/xeda, euxcuy /col &va(cus b> tois ToioiaSe 
tois KgaTovclu avTuv eu^o/iei/ovs, eVetS^ Kal ^uets SiriWdy/xeda. 

t Plato was born about 430 years, a. c. His family was of illus- 
trious descent, and ranked amongst the most honourable of the 
Athenians. On his father's side he was descended from Codrus, the 
last of their kings ; and on his mother's from Solon, their great 
legislator. His original name was Ariston. He received the name of 
Plato from the largeness of his shoulders. Poetry seems first to have 
engaged his attention, but that he soon relinquished, in comparing 
the efforts of his muse with the Iliad. After having travelled over 
many countries, and made his mind the reservoir of every kind of 
knowledge, he settled at Athens, and opened a school for philosophy ; 
which science he had been induced to study on hearing the eloquent 

p2 



108 

afforded us from any thing striking* and peculiar 
in his tenor of conduct. No strict adherence to 
any rule marked the line of life adopted by our 
philosopher. Unlike his great master, he was more 
willing to shine as a philosopher, than to be es- 
teemed as a useful plebeian : more fond of meta- 
physical minutiae, than emulous to instruct the 
vulgar mind in the simple manner of doing well. 
Not that we would throw any aspersion upon the 
doctrines of Plato; that would be casting a re- 
flection upon him whose foster child he was; but 
we cannot but look with distaste upon the elegant 
yet superfluous trappings with which he has en- 
cumbered the purer sentiments of that great philo 
sopher. As to the style and diction of Plato, a 
decided superiority is not questioned. He drank 
largely of that fountain of letters from whence 
springs excellence. Born under a genial sun, he 
nourished that flame which happily warmed his 
own breast. His first addresses, we are told, were 
to the tragic muse ; but possessing that generous 
pride which is the feeling of every great mind, 
when made sensible of the inferiority of its own 
efforts, he destroyed the fillet of his early mind, 
and sought the cultivation of philosophy for to 
obtain a name amongst his countrymen. For eight 
or nine years he was the diligent pupil of Socrates, 
and at his death judging it wise under afflicting 

harangues and wisdom of Socrates. The opinions of Plato were 
eagerly received in the Christian world. His works are all written in 
the form of dialogues. He died on his birth-day, in the eighty-first 
year of his age. Some say in the midst of an entertainment, but 
Cicero, with more probability, when writing. 



100 

circumstances to leave Athens, the seat of violence 
and faction, he travelled over a great part of Greece. 
In his way through Sicily he indulged in that 
curiosity which cost the excellent Pliny his life. 
He examined the eruption of a volcano. From 
thence having passed through Egypt, he retired to 
the groves of Academus : there he met with that 
applause which is due to superior merit. It was 
during the many years that he presided over this 
academy, that he wrote those dialogues which have 
been the praise of every age and country. To an 
extremely temperate habit, we may perhaps at- 
tribute that clearness of conception which not un- 
frequently marks the sublime. It is to his merit 
that we may remark he was more desirous of 
being a good school-man, than of shining in public 
as a statesman. He wisely refused to take any 
share in the political contentions of his countrymen. 
The notions which he adopted from former philo- 
sophers he rendered subservient to his own precon- 
ceived opinions : from these materials he became 
the author of a system which he developed in his 
writings and conversations. He prefers dialogue 
to the strain of other philosophers ; and in this 
form his sentiments are delivered with peculiar 
felicity. "Some of these, ,, says Dunbar, "are 
distinguished by sublime and glorious conceptions, 
adorned by copious and splendid diction, and 
wrought up in such an easy and harmonious style, 
as to seem rather allied to poetry than prose. 
It was certainly from a persuasion of this, that his 
countrymen decreed him the honourable appellation 
of the Athenian bee." In one of his dialogues 



110 

Plato represents his master as rallying' the orators, 
and ridiculing that empty declamation which is the 
besetting evil of loquacity : but in this, as in every 
other instance save two,* in which he mentions 
himself, he makes his own sentiments to flow from 
the mouths of others. From his Phsedon and 
Timaeus we extract the following sublime idea of 
the deity: "The Creator of the universe is one, 
immortal, infinite : the centre of all perfection, the 
inexhaustible source of intelligence and being : 
who existed before he created the universe, nor had 
manifested his power by any external act, for he 
had no beginning : he existed independent of all 
other beings in the unfathomable depths of eter- 
nity. " There is something remarkably striking in 
the definition which he gives of the human soul. 
He compares it to a small republic, of which the 
reasoning and judging powers were placed in the 
head, a firm citadel, of which the senses are con- 
stituent members, and being properly subservient 
to the judgment are its servants, and yet possessing 
authority in some degree and acting with the soul 
are figuratively styled its guards. The soul is 
divisible into various passions, or operating powers. 
The higher order, which he places in the head, are 
gently cooled by the breath of heaven, which, like 
a genial breeze, is respired, and gives animation. 
The breast is made the receptacle of passions of a 
lower nature, termed desire. Conceiving that the 
connexion of these two should not be of too in- 



* Once in the dialogue entituled Phedon, and another in the 
apology for Socrates. 



Ill 

timate a nature, he makes the intermediate situation 
of the neck to separate the animal from the mental 
part of the soul ; and they too, he adds, are gently 
cooled by the kind offices of the lungs, which act 
as a moderating corrective in any warm conflict 
which might take place between these two powers. 
The lower or concupiscible part provided for the 
support and its necessities, and these again have re- 
course to the liver to take off any excess with which 
they are too apt to be charged. Thus he has with 
mathematical accuracy dealt out to each a mutual 
service. In his system of philosophy he followed 
the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysical opinions 
of Pythagoras, and the morals of Isocrates. He 
maintained the existence of two beings, one self- 
existent, and the other formed by the hand of a 
preexistent creature, god and man. The world 
was created by that self-existent cause. Creatures 
were delegated to a lower order of beings which 
he calls demons. Plato was the first who, in sup- 
port of the immortality of the soul, produced 
arguments solid and permanent, deduced from truth 
and experience. He did not imagine that the 
eternal welfare of the soul would be injured by the 
diseases to which the body might be subject, nor 
did he conceive of the soul as totally devoid of 
embarrassment, in consequence of its connexion 
with the body : and in this opinion he coincided 
with his great master, for both were unanimous in 
regard to the tax which was imposed upon the 
higher aspirations of the soul. To illustrate his 
sentiments more fully, the great founder of Plato- 
nism wrote a book well known by the name of 



112 

"The Republic of Plato," in which he with g*reat 
talent explains the rise and revolution of civil 
society. His idea of justice was what we conceive 
to be very correct : it comprehended not only what 
we owe to ourselves, but what we also owe to our 
neighbours: in fact it included the perfection of 
every virtue. Truth accomplishes the philosopher, 
and virtue makes the man happy. Plato has a 
beautiful passage to this effect in the sixth book of 

his riepLlbllC I < Hyov^sv'ns $w aXvtQ slots, ovx. olv wore, dipou, tyou^iv 
oclrn xpgoY kockuiv anoXaQyiO'xi. Uus yap; AKK' i/yies ts xai psTpioi 
ffios u xcu cTwtypoavvYiv 'inrs&Qoci. 

Every ^xo^AaTwv must deplore that the writings of 
this great philosopher are so little attended to in 
schools, where we perceive a general decline of 
taste for metaphysics : but, however, we may ob- 
serve, that without a luminous and condensed 
philosopical commentary, the reading of Plato is 
such an arduous task, that few masters and few 
students can do justice to it. Plato's method was 
diametrically opposite to that of Aristotle. Siquidem 
quce Mi de substantiis intelliyibilibus, aut numeris et 
reliquis hujusmodi dixere, ea Aiisto teles ad res cor- 
poreas transtulit sensuique subjectas. 1 '* His maxim 
is to arrive at the knowledge of our things by 
ideas, which are to be considered as their originals. 
Aristotle's is to become acquainted with them by 
the effects which are the result of those ideas. 
The order established by Plato is, that of nature 
following herself out from cause to effects. Aris- 
totle's order goes to the cause by means of the 

* Bessar. Card, in Caelum, lib. ii. cap. 4. 



113 

effect. But sense is fallible, for which reason the 
knowledge of universals, founded on particulars, 
is faulty in principle, and rendering it infallible by 
what he calls his universal organ. 



ARISTOTLE— 385— 322, A. C. 

Aristotle was born at Stagira : he was the son 
of Nichomachus and Festiada. After his father's 
death, and at the age of seventeen, he went to 
Athens and became the pupil of Plato. It is said 
that his master, discerning the superiority of his 
endowments, called him " the mind of the school/' 
and would say when he was absent, " intellect is 
not here." His conduct in the early part of his 
youth was notoriously dissolute ; but having got 
the better of his habits, he applied himself with 
great acuteness : and after having for twenty years 
received the instructions of Plato, was afterwards, 
according to some, ten years preceptor to Alexander 
the Great, who received his lessons with every 
possible deference : and Plutarch observes, that this 
monarch owed more obligations to Aristotle, his 
tutor, than to Philip, his father. When Alexander, 
upon the death of his father, proceeded in his 
memorable expedition against the Persians, Aris- 
totle returned to Athens for the purpose of opening 
a school. The Lyceum (a grove in the suburbs of 
Athens) was the destined arena of our philosopher: 
it was there that he taught his pupils, and there 
that he raised many a monument of lasting fame. 
From the circumstance of his constantly walking 

Q 



114 

(hiring' his conversation with his pupils, his fol- 
lowers obtained the name Peripatetics. Aristotle 
followed the practice of other philosophers in estab- 
lishing two kinds of doctrines ; the one public, 
the other private ; the one called exoteric, the other 
aeroamatic or esoteric doctrine. The one class of 
hearers he taught his exoteric doctrine, consisting 
of logic, rhetoric, and politics : another class the 
more subtle doctrine concerning existence, nature, 
and the divinity. The character of Aristotle, as a 
philosopher, stood very high for many ages. Such 
was the variety of his writing, that he seemed to 
address every muse with peculiar aptness. Moral 
and natural philosophy, metaphysics, mathematics, 
mechanics, grammar, criticism, and politics, in 
fact every branch of knowledge in cultivation in 
his time exercised his pen. His writings will 
appear to have been subject to a more than ordi- 
nary concatenation of eventful circumstances. I 
will extract an interesting account given of them 
by a learned modern writer. " To Theophrastus, 
his favourite disciple, Aristotle is said to have 
bequeathed his writings. He may perhaps have 
understood and valued them ; but that this elegant 
Athenian should pass over all his ingenious coun- 
trymen, and leave them to Neleus, an obscure in- 
habitant of an obscure city of Pergamus in Asia, 
whose heirs locked them in a chest, seems to imply 
that they were compositions not suited to his age 
and country. The Pergamenian kings, searching 
every where for books then only in manuscript, to 
form a great library in their metropolis, Neleus, 
fearing to be deprived of them, although consi- 



115 

tiering" them as useless save as mere property, buried 
them in a vault : here they lay unknown and un- 
touched one hundred and thirty years. By this 
time the possessor of this buried treasure wanting 
money, sold them to Appelico, a rich citizen and 
great book collector. Though damp and decayed, 
they came into Sylla's hands, who sent them to 
Rome, not, it is thought, for the purpose of reading 
them, but of adding to his popularity that of a 
great book collector. After that Tyrannion, who 
being carried prisoner to Rome from Pontus (was 
under the patronage of Cicero, who was reading 
lectures at the time in Rome,) undertook to form a 
copy, having obtained permission from his friend, 
Sylla's librarian. He communicated his labours to 
Andronicus Rhodius, who from the manuscript first 
made the works of Aristotle known to the public, 
nearly two hundred and fifty years after the hand 
that wrote them had mouldered in the dust." 

Aristotle was anxious to make himself the head 
of a new sect, and for this purpose attacked the 
opinions of all preceding philosophers. Concerning 
the formation of the world, he deviated from re- 
ceived laws. He imagined that the operating prin- 
ciples were in nature opposite, independent, and 
underived, from which all things proceed. But as 
they could never combine to produce any sensible 
objects, a third was necessary. These three prin- 
ciples he denominated form, privation, and motion: 
the two former contrary to each other, the latter 
the common subject of both. Matter and form 
are the constituent principles of things, privation 
makes no part of their constitution, but is aeri- 
es 



116 

dentally associated with them. Primary matter, 
eternal and uncreate, he considered destitute of all 
qualities, and therefore not a body but the subject 
on which forms might be impressed, and in which 
they might inhere. The causes or principles of 
the universe he divided into four kinds. Material, 
of which things are made : formal, by which every 
thing was made to exist as it is : efficient, by the 
agency of which any thing is produced : and final, 
or the end for which it is produced. 

The notions which Aristotle formed of virtue 
and moral conduct deserve more attention. He 
made virtue to consist in the habit of mediocrity, 
according to right reason. This idea Horace has 
beautifully expressed.* Virtue he considered as the 
middle path between two extremes, the one of 
which offends from being too much, the other from 
being too little affected, by a particular species of 
objects. The first virtue, that of fortitude, consists 
in preserving a medium between the opposite vices 
of cowardice, timidity, and presumptuous rash- 



* Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum 
Semper urgendo ; neque, dum procellas 
Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo 
Litus iniquum. 

Auream quisquis roediocritatem 
Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti 
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda 
Sobrius aula. 

Lib. ii. od. 10. 

Licinius, your manner of life would be more perfect (before the 
gods), by neither plunging (as it were) into the deep, nor being too 
timorous of the sands. Whosoever preserves that golden mediocrity, 
is secure from the griping hand of poverty on the one hand, and from 
the toil of envied greatness on the other. 



117 

ness ; the one of which is too much affected by the 
objects of fear, the other too little. Temperance 
is the mean between the excessive pursuit and the 
total neglect of pleasure. Moderation keeps at an 
equal distance from ambition and the contempt of 
greatness. The other virtues may all be considered 
as holding nearly the same place between the two 
extremes. These above cited are some of the 
leading tenets of Aristotle. During the dark ages 
our philosopher was unrivalled in the Roman 
Church, and his philosophy gradually superseded 
all others. The schoolmen looked up to Aristotle 
as a being superior to themselves, and implicitly 
adopted all his opinions. Since the revival of 
learning his reputation has been upon the decline. 
As far as natural insight can investigate the mys- 
teries of religion, his ethics are a specimen of clear 
reason ; but he is miserably defeated when he endea- 
vours to form intuitive axioms under the shackles of 
a measured theory. This is also another proof that 
to evidence in a great measure is philosophy in- 
debted for her rules. His Politics may be read 
with great advantage ; and his Art of Poetry has 
furnished almost all the critics since his time with 
rules for their strictures. One reason why the 
style of Aristotle is rendered with more difficulty, 
is in consequence of the unhappy state in which 
the manuscript was when it came into the hands 
of Sylla's librarian. The parts which had been 
more subject to the damp and decay than the 
others, were carefully filled up by some book-maker 
of that raw period: hence the unconnected ideas 



118 

and abrupt clauses which are the evidence of 
barbarous interpolation. 

As a test that Aristotle acknowledged a divine 
principle, we will quote a passage from the learned 
writings of the emperor Julian. " Are you willing/' 
says our philosopher, " after this that I should ad- 
duce as a testimony the all wise Syren, a type of 
the eloquent Hermes, and dear to Apollo and the 
muses ? For he thinks it fit that those who inquire, 
or, in short, argue as if they were dubious whether 
or not there are gods, do not deserve to be answered 
as men, but to be punished as brutes."* Beyond 
this Aristotle laid down a rule, that to those who 
entered his school this should be proclaimed prior 
to every thing else, that they should be pious to 
the gods ; should have been instructed in all the 
mysteries, and initiated in the most holy teletae, 
(for such were the mysteries denominated by Pro- 
clus) and have a perfect knowledge of all the 
mathematical disci plines.f Cicero compliments him 
with the title of a man of eloquence, of universal 
knowledge, readiness and acuteness of invention, 
and fecundity of thought. J Plato styled him the 
philosopher of truth, for he studied little the orna- 
ments of style. 

• BovAet rb fierct tovto r^v irdvffo<pou wrayogevarca ^.eiprjva, rbv tov Aoyiov 
tvttov 'Epuov,* AirSWoovi /cat reus Movcrais <pi\ov ; iicelvos ct£ioi rovs eVepa)- 
rSiVTas, Kal '6\<i)S iirix^povj/ras e* 0eoi elcrt, ovx us avQpdnrovs diroKgureas 
rvyxaveiv, &AA' us duplet. ko\oo~4us — Julian. Orat. vii. p. 440, 4to. 

+ 'Ejkws av irpb iravruv '6tl ret irpbs rovs Osovs euae/Jels eluai.— -Julian. 
Orat. vii. p. 440. 

$ Quia omnium doctior ? quis auctior ? quis in rebus vel inveniendis, 
vel judicandis, acrior Aristotele fuit ? 

* Supple Kal ru. 



119 

That Aristotle accords with Plato in the dogma 
that the principle of all things is super-essential, 
is evident, as Simplicius well observes, from the 
end of his treatise on prayer, in which he clearly 
states, " that God is either intellect, or something 
above intellect."* In this point they are happily 
agreed, yet we cannot conceive of a more glaring 
proof of the limited capacity of the human intel- 
lect, than to picture these two exalted minds tra- 
versing as it were another element, and exhaling 
the pure ether, disagreeing upon the minutest, yet 
simplest hypothesis, that could be urged; their disa- 
greement appears not so much to exist in the essence 
of the hypothesis, as in the metaphysical arrange- 
ment of the powers of argument : and we may with 
propriety observe, when we see the talents of these 
two higher powers wound up to the highest pitch of 
metaphysical deduction, and each expending his 
scholastic force for the latitude of an hair's breadth, 
(which, did either obtain, would utterly confound 
his principles,) what a very slight gleam of reve- 
lation would have reconciled these nice differences, 
had they but been confronted with the native, but 
powerful eloquence, of an unlettered fisherman, 
some three or four centuries subsequent to that 
period, how every nicely managed hypothesis would 
have become a self-evident principle. Aristotle 
would have been able to assign a rational signifi- 
cation for the impulse which he received from the 
Pythian oracle which he kept in his house, and 
which impulse was that which prompted him to 
the study of philosophy. 

* Tlaga to7s iaxo-TOis rov fiifi\lou ircpl irgo(rsv)(ris 810^778771/, \4ywu, 8V< 6 
6ebs vovs £<rTi % rt Kal {nT(p vow.-— Simp, in Arist. de Cuelo, p. 118. 



120 

The general character of the opinions of Aristotle, 
taking- into account the obscurity which hung" over 
Greek philosophy, was wisdom and correct discern- 
ment, regularity and solidity, giving more satis- 
faction to the mind than the system of either 
Stoics or Epicureans. 



ISOCRATES—437— 338. 

Amongst the philosophers and moralists of this 
period, none perhaps may possess fairer claims to 
elegance and neatness of diction, than the friend 
of Philip of Macedon. He was the son of one 
Theodorus, a musical instrument maker of Athens ; 
and was the pupil of Gorgias and Prodicus respec- 
tively. His timidity of disposition precluded the 
possibility of his ever shining in public as an orator. 
The defeat of the Athenians at Cheronea so preyed 
upon the spirits of Tsocrates, that he denied himself 
the necessaries of life, and consequently died, in 
the ninety-ninth year of his age. 

The style of Isocrates is principally remarkable 
as being a specimen of that peculiarity and neat- 
ness to which the Greek language could be Wrought. 
Apart from his contemporaries, he seems to have 
dictated his sentiments in as pure a tone of ex- 
pression as the right position of words would admit. 
Unable to appear in the capacity of a public speaker, 
he nicely measured every period and pruned every 
exuberance ; in short, he appears to have consulted 
metrical accuracy in the formation of his style. 
How far this mode of writing may appear unob- 
jectionable, I am not at liberty to answer; but to 



121 

our feeling's, the stateliness of prose seems much 
more adapted to convey the sentiments of sober 
admonition, than the nicely tuned epithets of the 
poetic muse. The orations of lsocrates possess also 
another disadvantage, which, although parallel in 
importance, is much more unhappy in effect. An 
oration got up in the study may possess all the 
qualities of a correct form of speech, and a perfect 
regularity of parts ; it may add that strength of 
reasoning and force of argument which shall 
render it almost invincible; it may consolidate the 
strength and unite the beauty of a perfect oration ; 
but notwithstanding all this, there is an energy, 
which enunciation alone can supply, beyond the cool 
retreat of the closet, warmed but by the regular 
ardour of a strained intellect — each thought calling 
back its fellow, and digesting well its time and 
place — bound to the rules of syllogism, or ob- 
serving that coherence of rhetorical accuracy which 
system may prescribe and formality make necessary. 
Had the lamp alone fanned the sparkling flame 
of animation which dictated the Philippics, Greece 
had never seen in him the unrivalled orator of his 
country, nor would the fame of Demosthenes have 
outlived the woful ignominy which avarice at an 
after period corrupted. 

The orator, after having finished his oration, and 
given it all the studied accuracy and regular beauty 
which the seclusion of the closet or the grotto may 
suggest, has still to await some happy period of time 
time and lively concatenation of circumstances, 
which may invite his appeal to the people ; for 
there he is induced to comment upon what may have 



122 

been the product of his more solitary hours; and 
those sentiments which, uttered spontaneously as his 
sense of the merits of what he urges, as they are 
true to the ardour which induces them, are the 
effect of that generous feeling which animates the 
panting efforts of patriotism — those sentiments 
which the occasion may present, and which, as by 
natural impulse, strike the mind of the orator 
when uttering 1 the more digested effusions of a 
meditated harangue. These extraneous advantages 
cannot be urged in favour of Isocrates, since it is 
very dubitable whether ever any of his orations 
experienced the force of declamatory power. But 
notwithstanding the remarks which we have 
thought proper to make upon the merits of Isocrates, 
the remains of his orations extant inspire the world 
with that veneration of his talents, as a moralist, 
an orator, and, above all, as a man, to which the 
strained forms of eulogy cannot do justice. He 
has left us a collection of maxims which, howsoever 
they may serve any useful purpose, are worthy of 
being transcribed for the sentiments they contain. 
We have selected a few of them, and, it is hoped, 
that as they are for the use of the general reader, 
he will overlook the inelegance of the translation, 
for the most part purely literal. 



FEAR OF GOD. 

First, therefore, piously regard those things or observances 
which relate to the worship of the gods; not only as to sacri- 
fices and the keeping of vows. For while that is a sign of 
our abundance, this is an evidence of the purity of our morals. 



123 

Reverence at all times what is sacred, but particularly that 
which is considered so by your country. For thus you will 
appear to render sacrifice to the gods, and also to observe the 
laws of your country. 

Tlgurov fxkv ovv eutre/Set to irgbs rovs &eovs, firi iidvov friW, d\\d Ka\ rots 
b'gKOis e/j-ixeuoov, 'Ewe^o /xev yap tt)s xpVf^-druu cinropias o"t]jXiiov, rovro 8e rys 
tuv rpSwwu KaXoKayaOias reK/x^ptou. Tifia rb haifxiviou del ftev, (/.d\tra 8e 
fxelk rijs iroKews. Ovlw yap 86£tis H/xa re rois frtols &veu>, nal ro7s uSfxois 
e/x/xeueiv. 

HONOUR YOUR PARENTS. 

Let every one act towards his parents as he would wish that 
his children should towards him. 

Totovhs yivov nep\ rovs yoveis, o'lovs &v e#£cuo irepX ceavlbv yevecrdat rovs 
ceavrov iratdas. 

BODILY EXERCISE. 

We should accustom the body to those exercises which do 
not call forth the inherent strength, but which contribute to 
the health of the system. And this you may effect by ceasing 
to work, while as yet you can sustain labour. 

v AcKet rav irept rb (raiiayvuvao-lwv, fiij ra irpbs rty p"<*>[JLi)V, d\\drd irpbs rty 
vyieiav o~vfj.<pepovra. Tovrov 8' ap iirtrvyxdpots, el hfjyeis rup ttSpup, en 
irovuv SwdfjLevos. 

Accustom yourself not to be sullen, but thoughtful ; for by 
the one you will be considered as acting deceitfully, and by 
the other prove yourself wise. 

"Edige ffeavlbv eluat fi}j o-Kvdgwjr6p, d\\d avvvovv St eicetvo fjtep yap avQdZ-qs, 
hid he rovlo <pp6pt/xos elpat 86£ets, 

EMULATION. 

Be emulous for the most part to excel, or to cultivate in 
yourself order, bashfulness, equity, caution, or prudence, for 
to all these it is necessary that youth should be subject. Never- 

r2 




124 

theless, having acquired any good, there is no shame in endea- 
vouring to conceal it : for although you conceal it from others, 
you are yourself conscious of it. 

'Hy$ fid\is-a ceavlcS -rrpennv, k6o-/aov, a\ax^ Vi \ v i diKaioawrju, (Twtppoa-wrjy. 
Tovtois ydg airaui 8one7 Kpar^Qei t2> tuv vtwlepwv ^0©^. k. t. A. 

Fear God and honour your parents. 

Tbv nlv &ebv <po$S, robs Se yoveis ri/xa. 

CHARITY. 

Be unassuming and modest towards your friends or bene- 
factors, and obedient to the laws. 

Jobs 8e <pi\ovs alaxwov. Tens 8e voixots neidov. 
PLEASURES. 

Follow pleasures after consideration. For that pleasure that 
is connected with a worthy object is noble, and that absent 
from it is debased. 

Tas rjBovds Brjpeve, ras fxela 86%7]S. Tepxpts yao o~bv ru> Ka\S> fxhv 6.§irov r 
avev 5e rovlov K.dni?ov. 

CALUMNY. 

Beware of impeaching any one, lest your accusation be 
false; for many, being ignorant of the truth, attend merely 
to report. 

Ev\a&8 rds 8tafio\ds, tcav i|/eu5e?s Sxnv. Oi yap iroXKoX ryv ji\v a\f)9eiav 
dyvoatri, irpbs 5e rrju 5o£av dirofiAeirovaiv. 

OPENNESS. 

It is fit that you should act as concealing nothing; for what 
at this moment you may hide, at another you will reveal. 

"Airavla S&cet iroitiv, us /x^SeVa hijarup* nal ydp h/ irapavVaca ngv\frt)s } vtcqqv 



125 



INSTRUCTION. 

Especially would you be in good estimation, should you 
make it manifest that you do not practise the same things 
which you reprehend in others. 

Md\i?a 5' ai> ev5oKip.oir)S, el (paivoio ravra p.h iroa-rruv, a rols aWois, ijv 

■np6.TTU(JLV, ilTlT IJJ.W7JS. 

GENERAL READING. 

If you would be a lover of learning, you should be a learner 
of much. Whatsoever you may learn attend to these rules ; 
and when you have learned thus far, betake yourself to the 
sciences. For just the same how foolish it would be, that 
having heard a useful discourse, not to learn; and whatsoever 
is given unto you by your friends, not to take as meriting your 
thanks, or as a hint for your information. 

* V A p.ev iiriraa-ai, SiatyvKarre reus p.eXe1ais t a Se p.T) p.ep.ddT)KO)S, irpo<r\dp.f$ave 
reus 4ttis-t) pats. 'Op.oia>s yap alcrxgdv, axsaavra XPWWOV \6yov p.}/ pLavQdveiv, 
Ka\ SiS6p.eu6p ri dyadbu irapx rdv <pi\wv pvtj XafSelv. 

INSTRUCTION. 

Throughout all this life spend it as it were in receiving 
instruction, or with a desire of hearing; for thus the labours 
of many hardly earned will make it easy for you to learn. 

KalavaAuTKe t\\v ev tcS fSicp axoXfy els t))V tuv \6ywv <ptXit)Koiav' ovlu ydo 
rd tois &\\ois x«Ae7rws evgT]u(p.eva avii^aefai <roi pafiiws navOdveiv. 

HEARING. 

It is generally the case that out of all you hear, some things 
are much better or more instructive than others. For indeed 
those leave the mind very soon, but the others endure for ever. 
For of all possessions wisdom alone is an immortal one. 

'HyS row aKovap.dl(i)V iroWa iroWwv elvai x^p-dluv Kpellru. 

It will not be irksome for you to tread that happy path of 
learning, together with those that are declared to speak what- 

S 



126 

soever is excellent. For indeed it is disgraceful that travellers, 
or those in search after truth, should pass over so much sea 
of intellect, for the sake of bettering their present lot, and for 
the young not to sustain these hardships by land as it were, 
(or upon certain grounds of attained knowledge, as books, 
lectures, &c.) which would contribute in a greater degree to 
the increase of the understanding. 

Mi] koISkvsi /xcucpoLv od$v Trogevecr&ai irpds robs BiSdffKeiv ri xgh&Wov itray- 
yaWo/xevois. Aio-xpof yap, robs (xkv iymopovs rnjAiKavIa ireAc^ Sid irecav 
eve/co tov 7rAei'w iroiricrai rty virdpxov(rav obaiav robs 82 vqoolegovs fxrjSe ras 
Kald yrjv irogdas vTrofiiveiv \n\ tw fic\Viw Kalas-rjaai tV iavlcSy Bidvoiau. 

COURTESY. 

Be courteous in your manner and affable in your language. 
For it is the property of courtesy to address a person on 
meeting him, and of familiarity or affability to address the 
same person in friendly language. 

T« /xep rpSwcp ylvov tpi\oTrgoo-f)yogos, tu> 8e \6ycp evTrpotrfiyogos. y Er* 5e 
tpihoTrgoffTjyopias fiku rb irpoa<p<t>vsiv robs airavroivras, eimpoariyoglas 5e rb ro7s 
hSyois avro7s oiKeius ivrvyxdvetv. 

CIVILITY. 

Be civil to all, but familiarwith none but the more excellent 
of society. Thus you will not appear to be inimical, but 
friendly to them. 

'H5eo>y fiev exe trpbs airavras, XP® 8e rols $e\ri(rrotS' ovru yap ro7s fi\v 
o\JK a.TT€x&h s ^°7?> I" ? 5 5e (p'tKos ysv'wQ. 

TALKING. 

Talk not frequently about the same things, nor long with 
the same persons ; for of all things there is a satiety. 

Tos ivrev&is jutj irvitvas iroiov ro7s avrois, fxrfi* fiaKgds ireg\ rwu abruv. 
UKva-fMOP^i ydp airdvruv. 

LABOUR. 

Exercise yourself in voluntary hardships, that you may 
sustain them with ease when they become compulsory. 



127 

Tvfiua^e (rsavrbv -ndvois inouoiois, ftirws av hvvaio na\ robs o.Kovaiovs viro- 
SELF-GOTERNMENT. 

Exercise a control over these (passions) viz. — gain, anger, 
pleasure, and grief. For it is disgrace that any mind should 
be under subjection to them. But in the case of gain you 
may think that there is some profit in those things for which 
you have contracted some desire, but not in those of which 
you possess abundance. And in the case of anger you should 
possess that fellow-feeling, which you would deem it meritorious 
in others to manifest. And concerning mirth, it would not 
become you to rule over your domestics, nor to prescribe for 
or compel them to such and such pleasures. But as to grief, 
look at the misfortunes of other men, and then manfully 
contemplate thine own. 

'Y</>' $>v Kpa.Te?o~6cu tV ^ u xV atcrxphv, tovIwv iyKpdreiav &o~Kei iravlwu, 
KepSovs, opyrjs, rfSovrjs, \virys. k. t. A. 

We should rather regard a pledge given in a man's word, 
than in his substance. For it is proper that all honest men 
should evidently manifest to the world that their depositions 
are more veracious than if made by an oath. 

MaWou rngei ras rwv \6yoov, $ ras rS>v xg^aW irapaKalae-fiicas. Ae? yap 
robs ayadovs &vBpas rpoirov opuov iri<rl6hpov (paiveo'dat Trape^OiueVovs. 

DESTRUCTION. 

It is equally our duty to be diffident about affairs which 
are unpleasing to us, as it becomes us to give credence to those 
which are worthy of regard or pleasant. But with regard to 
those things which are too base to deserve mention, say 
nothing about ; for it would be much better that those things 
be not mentioned, which by so doing no good purpose is 
effected. If an oath be tendered to thee, take it for two 
pretexts : first, as absolving thee from any shameful flaw or 
calumny : second, saving thy friend from peril. But for the 
sake of your possessions never take any thing divine to 
witness, for were you so to do you would not act religiously. 

s2 



128 

Tlpocr (]khv Tjyov rots itovijpols amstiv, uxrwep tois XS^" 10 ^ ""'^n/eii/. ^ep] 
ran- airo$f)T)ltov fxefievl \*ye, ir\^u iav 5/xolus ervju.(p4pT) ras Trpd^is crium ourdai 
eroi T€ t<2 \4yovli, Katceivois rots aKovovrnv. k. t. A. 

JUDICATURE. 

When you are appointed to any magisterial office employ 
no wicked person about your ministrations; for what of- 
fences soever he may commit they will be retorted upon you. 
From all these cares keep yourself free, since you will not 
gain by it, but be the more bravading: for that praise 
which is the voiee of the people is the most excellent of 
possessions. Of no bad cause be a patron, nor continue to 
maintain it, for you will perceive that by doing such things 
you will give encouragement to those who commit crime. 
Provide yourself with the means of bettering your condition, 
but allow that which is just or equal, that you may appear to 
desire what is right, not through weakness, but moderation 
or equity. Rather accept of justice though accompanied with 
poverty, than riches associated with baseness. 

EJs dpxyv Kctlcurladtils, firfiivX XP& irovrjpw irpbs tos 8l0lK^}<Tc^s• wv yap au 
itteivos ajxaploi, col rets aflias avaQi\a-ov<riv. k. t. A. 



CHAP. X. 

DEMOSTHENES— 382— 322, A. C. 

In commenting upon the writings of Demos- 
thenes, it is somewhat difficult to decide, whether 
we are criticising the talents of a single individual, 
or descanting upon the whole range of Grecian 
eloquence. Howsoever critics may decide upon 
this matter, it is evident that the life of Demos- 
thenes, as an orator, deserves a minute attention. 
In him we see an example of the most consummate 
excellence, brought about by the utmost perse- 
verance. History informs us, that Demosthenes 



129 

was left an orphan at an early period of his life. 
His father was an Athenian, who by some manual 
occupation, some say that of an armourer or black- 
smith, succeeded in amassing" considerable wealth, 
which, in consequence of his son's minority at his 
death, he was left in the hands of guardians, 
who, being of dubious honesty, caused his estate 
to become dilapidated, and his education to be 
utterly neglected. From these two unhappy cir- 
cumstances, the features of his youth cannot be 
pourtrayed in very promising* colours, save in those 
happy traits of character and genius, which it is 
the lot of great men to hear poured as a pleasing 
libation upon the growing excellence of after life. 
How much soever the want of proper fundamental 
instruction may detract from the merits of any 
man, these as far as could be, consistent with reality 
of a lost advantage, were amply compensated in 
the superlative exertions of riper years. Nature on 
him appears to have dealt out her advantages with a 
sparing hand, for upon our orator certainly she never 
lavished those gifts which are indispensable for 
his profession as a public speaker. The symmetry 
and appearance of his body did not give him that 
grace and elegance which please as well as en- 
gage the attention, particularly when backed with 
the powerful strain of persuasive eloquence: an 
awkwardness also, which by habit had been con- 
tracted, served in some measure to disgust his 
audience. His rising talents were also impeded by 
weak lungs, which occasioned a bad and imperfect 
enunciation. These silent but powerful remon- 
strances would, in any moderate pretensions, con- 



130 

vince the individual that nature has never designed 
him for an orator. But nothing* can come in 
contact with that ambition which, perhaps in the 
first instance prompted by vanity, views with 
longing eye the enticing laurel — a grateful tribute 
to acknowledged superiority. Animated by this, 
our orator sets about his work of conquering those 
defects which prevent his attainments : the defect 
of which he would first be made sensible would be 
that of utterance. This impediment he overcame 
by keeping pebbles in his mouth during a con- 
tinuance of speech, scaling the rugged mountain, 
and swelling his cadence to the restless sea. How 
he succeeded in these endeavours may be seen from 
the reception he met with when he quitted this 
honourable retirement. Suffice it to say, that those 
orations which have immortalized him were the 
honoured labours of those happy hours, where 
half-shaven and of a neglected mien, he warmed 
his muse by the glimmering light of a reeking 
lamp. The triumph of Demosthenes was not over 
a people of an ignorant age — no, far otherwise — 
but when all Greece was enlisted in the common 
cause of letters. 

Plato, who established an academy, and which 
was attended by all noble Athenian youth, num- 
bered him amongst his pupils; but Isaeus seems to 
have been preferred by Demosthenes, whose in- 
structions he cordially received. The sweet morals 
of Isocrates also tended to chase away that wanton- 
ness which too often defaces high talents, and 
diminishes the intrinsic value of learning. The 
first efforts of his strength were directed against 



131 

his guardians, whom he accuses of having" em- 
bezzled his estate, and of scandalously mismanaging 
his heritable possessions. This charge he pressed 
with so much cogency and convincing argument, 
as to gain the point with applause. It was perhaps 
in the heat of that success with which on this oc- 
casion his eloquence was crowned, that he mounted 
the tribunal and publicly harangued the Athenians ; 
but his attempts at this time were not so sanguinely 
received, perhaps in some measure being devoid of 
that forcible persuasion which flows from a con- 
viction of the truth of the reasons urged : he would 
not be heard with equal interest, and his natural 
embarrassment would be more felt by his audience. 
On his return, exceedingly dejected at his ill success, 
he resolved in his own mind to abandon a pursuit, 
for which nature seemed not to have destined him. 
He was met by a friend, who quickly learned the 
reason of his despondency ; and by quoting a few 
verses from Sophocles, made our orator acquainted 
with his prime deficiency. This timely hint had 
the desired effect upon the mind of Demosthenes. 
He again resolved upon the accomplishment of a 
task, which by any other individual similarly cir- 
cumstanced would have been deemed perfectly 
insurmountable. In what manner and to what 
extent he effected his determination, Greece herself 
will bear ample testimony. The times in which 
he lived displayed a most glorious field for the 
due exercise of his talents. The Athenians them- 
selves were little sensible of the encroachments 
which Philip of Macedon was making upon the 
freedom of Greece. He who embraced in his view 




132 

extended conquest, met with no greater opposition 
to his arms than the eloquence of Demosthenes. 
He who felt the sweets of freedom glow in his 
bosom, deprecated the supineness of the Athenians, 
and roused them to think of the danger to which 
the encroachments of Philip subjected them. In- 
stead of Athens distracted by civil broils and disu- 
nited, she became united, formidable, and dangerous 
to the neighbouring states, which, being wrapt 
in luxury and indolent ease, forgot the glory of 
her ancestors, and sold her government and the 
management of public affairs into the hands of 
mercenaries — entrusted her defence and safety to 
the base pensioners, who wallowed her in ap- 
proaching ruin. But things were not to continue 
in this state. Athens was happily at this crisis 
the scene of many contending orators, each making 
his pretensions to public applause; but no one 
shone so clearly in his zeal for the public weal, 
as the illustrious author of the Philippics. He 
watched the movements of the artful Macedonian 
with a scrutiny in which none but one hoping to 
build his fame upon the success of his enterprise 
could persist. 

The eloquence of Demosthenes was not directed 
against the ambition of a general, who advanced 
with open front to the field of action ; but, on the 
contrary, he harangued against a soldier, and a 
veteran, in the arts of stratagem and intrigue. 
Born in the camp, and cradled in the arms of vic- 
tory, he came not in features of hostility — in the 
place of arms, he opposed to the unsuspecting 
Athenians an apparent disposition for accommo- 



133 

tion : to this he added an engaging and insinuating- 
address — unbounded liberality and extensive pro- 
mises — holding out every advantage to those who 
would enrol themselves under his standard. Flushed 
with the intended conquest of Persia, and the hopes 
of a successful enterprise, Philip found it not 
difficult to seduce even some of the leading men of 
the state of Greece, who, either openly avowing 
the goodness of his cause, or perhaps conniving at 
his attempts at universal dominion, rejected the 
bravery of their ancestors, and basely lent their 
strength against those sacred ties — that most ob- 
stinate bulwark, the liberty of their country. This 
treachery of his countrymen, as set in its proper 
colour by Demosthenes, he who may be styled one 
of the last of the Greeks, deprecated these slavish 
concessions to one whom he viewed in the light of a 
tyrannical despot; and these he rightly contemned 
as insults offered to the manes of those departed 
heroes, whose services to their country have left in 
their names an imperishable temple of fame. With 
these high sentiments he inveighed against the 
designs of the usurper, watched his motives, de- 
tected his schemes, and exposed his measures. 

In forming a confederacy for this purpose, his 
abilities as. a politician were no less conspicuous 
than his talents as an orator. He had, as a learned 
professor observes, to oppose a party at home, keen, 
vigilant, and ready to take advantage of every error 
or untoward event, to ruin him with the people. 
He had to gain over states exasperated against 
Athens by acts of hostility, instances of infidelity, 
and attempts upon their liberties \ many of whose 

T 



134 

leading citizens were also bribed into Philip's 
service, or had so little virtue as to be careless of 
their country's fate, provided their own interests 
were secure. He had, continues he, to manage 
the wayward inclinations of the people; to secure 
their favour while he stigmatized their indolence ; 
to appeal to the best principles of their nature, the 
noblest period of their history ; and the high notions 
they entertained of their own dignity and import- 
ance, while the detail of facts brought under their 
view was intended to put them to shame and con- 
fusion. The force of his eloquence upon the as- 
piring manoeuvres of Philip was both marked and 
evident : he never more sensibly experienced that 
the tongue was an unruly member ; he laid a tax 
upon her orators, and they were ordered by the 
Macedonians to be given up. On this occasion 
Demosthenes made use of the fable of the sheep, 
which delivered their dogs to the wolves. Although 
the services of our orator were of the highest im- 
portance, and were so well appreciated by his 
country as to decree him a crown, as a sense of the 
high opinion they entertained of him; and that 
his zeal in the administration making void the 
sarcasm and reproach of iEschines, was equal to the 
most consummate courage in action ; yet let Che- 
ronea testify how he who had sold his safety as a 
citizen into the hands of the democracy, had de- 
clared himself opposed to the cause of Philip, and 
confederated against all his measures; — let her see 
the shield which his persuasive eloquence had placed 
upon the arm of many a less anxious Greek, in the 
hour of difficulty and of danger, ingloriously cast 



135 

it from him : this was a stigma for which he could 
never atone. He who feigned to reject the offers 
of Macedon and her proffered riches, let the bribe 
of Harpalus silence his pretended magnanimity. 
In palliation of those two flaws, in the conduct of 
Demosthenes, it may be urged that the veracity of 
an oration does not affect the merits of the orator, 
more than the historical accuracy of the poet dimi- 
nishes the value of his verse; for both these ob- 
jections may be urged with truth against the con- 
summate efforts of the greatest writers of which 
Greece can boast. Whatsoever sophistry may re- 
concile ri^ht reason dictates — that excellence in 
any art combines a knowledge of its principles, 
and a practicable acquaintance with its effects. 

Demosthenes not only had the misfortune to 
corrupt his virtue by receiving a bribe — what was 
more, to be cast into prison for the offence. He 
did not long survive this disgrace, although he 
made his escape from confinement, and at the death 
of Philip was recalled from banishment by the 
voice of the Athenians. He incurred the resent- 
ment of Antipater, the successor of Alexander, and 
upon the approach of this general to Athens, our 
orator withdrew his friends to Calauria, and he 
he himself took refuge in the Temple of Neptune, 
where he died by his own hand, having drunk 
poison which he had carried about with him for 
this unhappy hour. 



T 2 



136 
CHAP. XI. 

PASTORAL POETRY. 
THEOCRITUS. 

Theocritus was a poet of some eminence; a 
Sicilian by birth, Syracuse being his native place. 
He was a writer of peculiar taste, in the Doric 
dialect, and of general talent ; but he excels in 
pastoral writing, of which species of composition he 
is a model; correct and worthy of imitation. Virgil 
in his eclogues has preserved him almost entire, 
and he has taken advantage of the beautiful tropes 
and turns of sentiment which mark the vivacity of 
the Sicilian muse. In his fourth eclogue he in- 
vokes the same power that touched the parent 
lyre, and Sicily he owns the land of song. 

That there are many passages in the ancient 
authors which correspond very clearly with the 
sentiments of the Old Testament writers, is evident 
in the many parallelisms with which we meet; 
and this circumstance warrants the supposition as 
to the actual knowledge of the Scriptures which 
the ancients had generally. Theocritus has, in the 
following passage, enriched the Idyllia with a 
quotation from Solomon's divine pastoral. 

'A5u ri rb crdfia rot, Kai icpifx^QOS, £> Ad<pvi, (poovd' 
Kp4<raov ix^Xtto{x4vu> tcv a,Kov4/j.ev. 77 jx4\i Aei%€ii/. 

Idyll, viii. 82, 83. 

Say, Daphne, what is so grateful as thy voice, or what so 
much to be desired ? I would prefer thee, sweetly singing, to 
the sipping of newly distilled honey, 



137 
Which runs much in the strain of — 

Kyplov diroffToi^ovari ra i//eiA?j gov, vvfjupt)- /u.e\t Kal yd\a vnb Tir\v yXuxraau 
(rod. — Cant. iv. 11. 

Thy lips, oh my spouse, chop as the honey-comb: honey 
and milk are under thy tongue. 

But it is needless to multiply instances, since they 
are so frequent and pertinent as not to be overlooked 
by a reader of moderate discernment. 



CHAP. XII. 

CONCLUSION. 

To speak of the classics generally without quali- 
fication or limit, the study of them particularly 
recommends itself to those whose circumstances 
and situation in life afford them leisure for study, 
and call them to the exercise of debate in public 
assemblies -, for the speeches of the great men 
amongst the Greeks and Romans are well worthy 
of their minute and constant attention, as being 
masterpieces of clear reasoning and genuine elo- 
quence: their orators clearly make out their case, 
propound their opinions, and argue strongly — their 
remarks are ever to the point — their sarcasm touch-, 
ing and clear, and their raillery diverting. " They 
are," observes an eminent author, " bold without 
rashness and insolence, and severe with good 
manners and decency. They do justice to their 
subject, and speak agreeably to the nature of things 



138 

and the characters of persons. Their sentences are 
sprightly, and their morals sound. In short no 
part of the compositions of the ancients is more 
finished, more instructive and pleasing than their 
orations. Here they seem to exert their choicest 
abilities, and collect the utmost force of their genius. 
Their whole histories may be compared to a noble 
and delicious country, that lies under the favourable 
eye and perpetual smiles of heaven, and is ever 
crowned with pleasure and plenty ; but their choice 
descriptions and speeches seem like some peculiarly 
fertile and happy spots of ground in that country, 
on which nature has poured out her riches with a 
more liberal hand ; and art has made the utmost 
improvement of her bounty. They have taken so 
much pains and used such accuracy in their ha- 
rangues, that the greater pleasure they have given 
the reader, the more they have exposed themselves 
to the censure of the critic. 

This is not the place wherein to draw a com- 
parison between the Greek and Roman languages, 
yet, notwithstanding, there is scarcely any one 
capable of forming any opinion of the merits of 
the classics, but will decide in favour of the vast 
superiority of them to the modern languages in 
strength and delicacy, and, in this respect, the 
preponderating merit of Greece will not admit 
of dispute. 

Greek and Latin have for many ages been fixed 
and unalterable ; and well is it for us of modern 
times, that the best writers in those languages 
flourished in those happy times, when learning and 
polite arts were arrived at their perfection and 



139 

standard : and one great advantage which the 
chief classics had was, that most of them were 
placed in prosperous and plentiful circumstances in 
life, raised above anxious cares and abject depend- 
ance. They were persons of quality and fortune's 
courtiers, and statesmen, great travellers, and ge- 
nerals of armies, possessed of the highest dignities 
and posts in times of peace and war. 

Their riches and plenty furnished them with 
leisure and means of study ; and their employments 
improved them in knowledge and experience. 
How lively then must they describe those countries 
and remarkable places which they had attentively 
viewed with their own eyes ! What faithful and 
emphatical relations were they enabled to make of 
those councils in which they presided, of those 
actions at which they were present and commanded ! 
for in the writings of the ancients we have nature 
without wildness, and art without ostentation. 

Perhaps it may not be amiss, in addition to what 
has been already said, to take a partial survey of 
the information which from various sources has 
been brought together. In the first instance, the 
barbarous state of any country precludes the possi- 
bility of its being the source of any direct informa- 
tion : the peninsular situation of Greece appears at 
an early period of her history to have afforded 
little interest to foreigners. One reason which may 
be assigned for this appears very conclusive, viz. — 
the Mediterranean being difficult of navigation, 
quicksands and sandbanks are dangers which the 
early navigators dreaded, but knew not how to 
avoid k and it will be needless to observe, that that 



140 

instrument which so efficiently directs the mariner 
in making* the proposed haven, was not the dis- 
covery of that age. It is pretty generally allowed, 
that the taste for letters first betrayed itself in a 
rude rhythm, which for the most part celebrated 
the exploits of their generals or the praises of their 
deity ; which being performed during the cele- 
bration of the sacred rites, was thought to render 
more acceptable the sacrifice : for how r could poetry 
avoid the wild mistakes of paganism, when paga- 
nism itself pursued the irregular motions of the 
heart ? Thus nature may be said to dictate a 
system of theology, which even barbarians in every 
country observe. 

Hence the epic muse would be the first to read 
her features there. Things would not continue 
long in this state : that spirit which first gave 
animation would evidently dictate an emulation 
equal to higher attainments. The sun had shone 
upon Greece, and Egypt lent the pale rays of his 
declining orb: the fever spread, and in the space 
of but a few years many an unfledged poet was 
seen to lay his tribute on the altar of the epic muse. 

Maeonia put in her claim, and in Homer alone 
was found excellence. He had no rival in his lay, 
but trod the flowery banks of poesy alone. Letters 
now became increasingly sought after by this re- 
forming people ; the sportive fancy of Greece began 
at this period to shew itself in satire and rude 
drollery, which, in the first stage, made the vices 
and follies of their superiors subjects of ridicule ; 
whilst the sarcasm and irony which they made use 
of tended in no small degree to give colour to the 



141 

caricatures which they drew. The etiquette of 
the courtier was ofteu made to feel the lash of this 
rude species of reproof; to the pedant also it was 
particularly offensive and unpleasant. Such then, 
we hesitate not to say, was comedy in its primary 
stage of advancement, viz. — an unbounded critique 
upon individual peculiarities. However, the un- 
natural license of the comedy not suiting the 
high tone of an Athenian ear, the drama was 
banished from Athens, and allowed to rusticate 
awhile, until schooled in the arts of courtesy it 
became eligible to the notice of polite society. 
The imitative faculty of the Greeks, not satisfied 
with supplying the audience with a kind of plea- 
santry which would at once recommend itself to 
the lighter affections of the commonalty ; scenes 
more calculated to arouse the attention and excite 
the passions, were next made to operate upon public 
taste. Hence surprise and horror borrowed lively 
colours from the representation of Orestes avenging 
the death of Agamemnon in the murder of Clytem- 
nestra ; and from descriptions of this nature arose 
that style of poetry which was afterwards called 
tragedy : for as Aristotle observes, " tragedy is not 
the representation of men, but of actions, of their 
lives both of happiness and misery.' ' Hence what 
comedy is to the manners of men, so tragedy is to 
their good or bad qualities. 

Prior to the birth of tragedy, the drama had 
been so well received and was entitled to such 
importance, as to maintain a distinct character in 
the stage of composition ; nor, at an after period, 
was the laurel of the comedian thought unworthy of 

V 



142 

the aspiring efforts of the enlightened Athenian. 
Aristophanes is emphatically styled the dramatist, 
in consequence of the superiority of his writings to 
those of his competitors. In this species of com- 
position the shafts of his irony and the force of his 
satire were as keenly felt, as sometimes they were 
ill-directed. For it is doing but justice to Aris- 
tophanes in saying, that he prostituted his high 
talents to the defamation of virtue and age ; nor 
did he hesitate to speak evil of dignities. 

History, the light of ages, and the grand chro- 
nometer of events, as yet hidden in the rising talents 
of Greece, now was sought after as the Greeks be- 
came legitimate heirs of the sacred stream of Heli- 
con. The Egyptian priests, like our mitred abbots 
of a few centuries back, were the main reservoirs 
of early information : it was from these sources and 
the efforts of a well-directed observation, that Hero- 
dotus principally drew together that mass of in- 
formation and record of events which compose his 
history. We hesitate not to say, that in the efficient 
manner in which he has executed this, he has 
succeeded in stamping immortality upon his work. 
No pains were spared — no difficulties considered 
insurmountable which came in contact with the 
determined industry of the historian of general 
events. But to what extent he may make a claim 
to undeviating accuracy, it is for the critic to decide. 
Thucydides, like our own Burnet, was the narrator 
of the occurrences of his own times, and of which 
he was an agent. Notwithstanding the acknow- 
ledged veracity of the historian, and the high 
tone which his writings still maintain in the 



us 

grade of popular taste, allowing for the sacrifice 
which he has not unfrequently made of gram- 
matical propriety to the claims of candour on the 
part of the historian, he may still be regarded rather 
as the elegant pourtrayer of events which came under 
his own observation, than the simple inquirer after 
truth. The transactions of the last seven years of 
the Peloponnesian war, were carefully noted by 
Xenophon, whose annals close the history of the 
war. With the exception of this performance, his 
writings too evidently breathe the spirit of the 
courtier, who, by the way, not professing that gal- 
lantry which induced a modern writer* to decline 
the honour of becoming the biographer of a late 
monarch's father, excusing himself on the grounds 
of his incapacity to do justice to that reign. 
Xenophon, in his Cyropaedia, according to the 
judgment of Cicero, has succeeded rather in draw- 
ing the model of an accomplished prince and just 
government, than of maintaining the strictness of 
history. 

In every age of the world, philosophy, in some 
sense of the term, has usurped the office of umpire 
in matters pertaining to religion and the moral 
government of the world. In this form, then, we 
conceive the science which was afterwards termed 
philosophy unfolded itself to the observation of 
mankind. An innate mode of reasoning, which 
never fails of producing ideas corresponding to 
the imaginative images of an intuitive exercise — 
thoughts which, by the way not entirely underived, 

* Sir W. Scott. 

TJ2 



144 

rise ad infinitum, when the mind turns upon a sub- 
ject which leads it more or less to see its own in- 
efficiency, and contributes to organize theories of 
innate birth. Under these circumstances, any at- 
tempt to trace the growth of philosophy through 
its several gradations, would be incompatible with 
existing embarrassments. Of this science Socrates 
made perhaps the sublimest use of any other of 
the philosophers : for he made its doctrines rather 
subservient to reason, than the imperious guide of 
an hidden principle. Thus his mind became ele- 
vated in proportion to the sublimity of his con- 
ceptions, and philosophy read her true feature in 
the due regulation of appetite and sordid feeling. 
Plato and Aristotle also possessed that greatness 
and depth of soul which entitled them to the rank 
of philosophers; abating, it is true, their deviating 
at times from that moral rectitude which so pre- 
eminently distinguished the character of their great 
master, and pandering to the novelty of a mere 
hypothesis, they yield in point of philosophic ore 
to the unrivalled excellence of Socrates. 

No soil could be more happily suited to the growth 
of oratory, than that on which the seeds of poetry 
produced flowers in grateful luxuriance, and spread 
before the observing eye a field of rich variety : and 
when even philosophy felt herself confined within 
the agreeable limits of rule and moral accuracy. 
Let it not be understood by this that we consider 
oratory the highest excellence of Athenian talent ; 
but rather that the mind of the orator is nourished 
by the fertilizing streams of the sister muses, and 
made the reservoir from which flow the nourishing 
ingredients of this kind of composition. 



145 

Homer, in his Iliad, has afforded ample resources 
for the instruction of every succeeding orator : for 
the speeches which he has put into the mouth of 
his heroes, are so varied in their manner and 
copious in their treatment, and at the same time 
serve as such excellent specimens of every species 
of oratory, that the orator may esteem his poems 
a valuable synopsis of the leading" principles of his 
art. It is pleasing to trace in the writings of 
Demosthenes, iEschines, and others of their class, 
yet of inferior claims, the germ of the Mseonian 
betraying itself in its original vigour and anima- 
tion, as well as the poetic effusion of the orator. 
The resemblance is as striking as the observation is 
just. These remarks may also be applied to those 
of our own country, who have cultivated with 
success this noble art. Our own Milton has pre- 
served those rules which Greece prescribed for 
herself, and the illustrious Pitt acknowledged him- 
self a great admirer of the epic bard. 

Homer, Demosthenes, Herodotus, and Archi- 
medes never had their equal in Rome. It was by 
admiring Homer, that Rome was honoured with 
the iEneid, and England with the Paradise Lost. 

The eloquence of Demosthenes produced a Cicero; 
the unadorned excellence of Herodotus was admired 
and appreciated by Varro; and Thucydides was 
esteemed by Livy. Archimedes and Euclid had 
no warmer parti zan than our own immortal Newton. 
It was by admiring Sophocles and Euripides that 
Racine has succeeded in placing himself beside 
them. 

The fame which tragedy afterwards attained to 



146 

was owing to this simple circumstance. Cimon 
returning" from a glorious campaign brought back 
the bones of Theseus. To preserve the memory of 
this event, the Athenians proposed a prize to be 
contended for by the tragic poets, and which con- 
tention became very famous. Judges chosen by lot 
were to determine the merit of the performances, 
and to adjudge the crown to the successful com- 
petitor amidst the commendations and applauses of 
the whole assembly. But the archon who was ap- 
pointed umpire on these occasions, witnessing- the 
unceasing" interruption of the people, nominated 
Cimon himself in connexion with nine other ge- 
nerals, judges. 

Sophocles, though at that time but a youth, 
presented his piece, and notwithstanding its being 
his first attempt, he succeeded in gaining the prize 
in competition with iEschylus, who until then had 
the honour of the theatre, and was esteemed as 
incontestably the best writer. 

Unable to survive this defeat by his pupil, he 
left Athens and retired to Sicily, where not long- 
after this he died through excess of grief. But as 
for Sophocles his reputation continually increased, 
and never left him, not even in extreme old age. 

It was a glorious day for Herodotus when he saw 
all Greece assembled at the Olympic games, and 
declare, whilst they heard him read his history, 
that the muses uttered their own accents in his 
mouth : and from this circumstance the annals of 
our historian were honoured with the title of the 
fostering nine. The case was the same with the 
orators and poets, who spoke their orations or read 
their poems in public. 



147 

To what extent the applauses of the multitude 
might carry the emulation of the candidates for 
fame, we may fully attest by the small period which 
was occupied under Pericles in carrying* the arts to 
the highest perfection. The arts and sciences were 
never more glorious and triumphant than after the 
expedition of Cyrus, which was the epocha from 
whence to date the prosperity of Greece ; and was 
in particular the occasion and origin of that glory 
which made the name of Athens so famous — for 
the following fifty years produced in that city a 
multitude of men eminent in every kind of study ; 
in arts, sciences, war, government, and politics. 
However, to confine ourselves to the arts alone, 
what gave such a zest and excited such emulation, 
were the distinguished honours which, at this pe- 
riod, were paid to the man of merit. 

Though Cicero had gained universal applause in 
Rome for his first orations, he found that some- 
thing was still wanting to complete his eloquence; 
and although esteemed a famous orator in his own 
country, he was not ashamed again to become a 
disciple of the Grecian rhetoricians and philoso- 
phers, under whom he had studied in his youth at 
Athens, which till then had been looked upon as 
the seat of science and the capital of the world for 
eloquence. She saw, at the same time, with grief 
and admiration, this young Roman ravish from 
them by a new kind of conquest, the remains of 
their ancient glory, and enrich Italy with the spoils 
of Greece. For Greece has always been the seat of 
good taste. It is from thence we must derive 
every branch of knowledge, if we would take it 




148 

from the original. Eloquence, poetry, history, 
philosophy, and physic, were all formed, and most 
of them carried to perfection in Greece, and thither 
we must go in search of them. 

Much honour would it have reflected on Greece, 
had she continued to maintain that character which 
is so honourably given her by her own historian. 
Herodotus observes, " that Greece indeed has ever 
been bred up in poverty ; but she has had virtue 
withal improved by wisdom and supported by the 
vigour of the laws. And from the use she has 
made of this virtue, it is that Greece has alike 
preserved herself from the inconveniences of po- 
verty and the yoke of subjection. " 

But the event will prove far otherwise. Luxury, 
while it unnerves the body, clog's the understanding 
and vitiates the taste. Thus poetry, under these 
circumstances, sickened, languished, and almost to- 
tally disappeared. But upon another principle we 
may also partly account for the state of things into 
which Greece plunged herself. Phocion, (340 a. c.) 
after Alexander had got himself acknowledged ge- 
neral of Greece, advised the Athenians to submit 
in these prudent words : " For (said he) till you 
can put yourselves at the head of Greece, I would 
have you the friends of those who are at the head." 
Again, Harpalus, one of Alexander's commanders, 
having in several respects failed in his duty, and 
dreading the resentment of his prince, fled with an 
immense quantity of treasure, which he had amassed 
out of the spoils of Asia. Athens was the place 
where he supposed that he could make a safe re- 



149 

treat: thither he went and conveyed his plunder 
with him, not doubting- that since lie came laden 
with wealth, he would be able to purchase friends. 

In this he was not disappointed ; for such was 
the fallen dignity of Greece, that most of the 
orators came flocking about him to tender their 
services, and to know the conditions lie would 
offer. As for Demosthenes, his good sense engaged 
him to declaim openly against receiving a man who 
was little better than a thief, and therefore might 
involve the commonwealth in a war at once dan- 
gerous and unjust : but a few days after this, when 
the treasure was publicly brought on shore, De- 
mosthenes was present, and took notice of the king's 
golden cup, whereupon Harpalus desired him to 
poise it and consider its weight, which he did, and 
then asked the price of it. To you, sir, said Har- 
palus, shall it come with twenty talents ; on the 
night it was accordingly sent, and Demosthenes 
when called upon the next day in the assembly to 
deliver his opinion, shewed his neck, which was 
swathed round with several rollers, and made signs 
of his being unable to speak, on which some wit 
observed— " The orator has got a golden quinsy." 
As for Phocion, Harpalus too, well knew him to 
be a man of a different disposition, nor did he 
think of succeeding in his scandalous overtures to 
this general. 

While Lysimachus,* Saleucus, Ptolemy, f and 
SosthenesJ held in turn the Macedonian kingdom, 
the Athenians remained free, but without making 



* 300 A. C. t '290 a. c. | 880 A. C. 

X 



150 

any great figure. When the Cauls, under the 
command of Brennus, threatened the destruction 
of the Greeks in general, the Athenians for a time 
exercised their former magnanimity, and under 
their general Calippus effected glorious things ; 
for then the common danger united all the Greeks, 
and even the King of Macedon himself. But 
these dangers over, and the affairs of Antigonus 
Gonatus,* the son of Demetrius, once in a pros- 
perous way, the Athenians felt the weight of his 
power; for he, mindful of their treatment to his 
father, resolved to be avenged ; and to make sure 
of them in future, he first wasted their territories, 
and afterwards closely besieged them. At last the 
Athenians, unable to hold out and unwilling to 
yield, made the best treaty with him of which their 
straitened conditions would allow : and they con- 
sequently became effectively his subjects, and were 
left as such to his son Demetrius. 

The Achaeans, however, once more felt that na- 
tive glow of liberty which so honourably prompted 
them in former days, when Greece knew her own 
son by his patriotism ; and then did Athens, assisted 
by the mighty genius of A rat us, feel a revival of 
that degree of liberty she affected to enjoy, rot- 
having prevailed upon Diogenes, the Macedonian 
governor, to give up three fortresses of Pyreum, 
Munichia, and Musseum, for one hundred and fifty 
talents, he advanced twenty of them himself, and 
then absolutely left the Athenians — having also the 

* 260 a. c. 



protection of the Achaeans to watch over then- 
liberty. 

That patriotism which so eminently distinguished 
the Achaean league, " spent the last heroes of the 
Grecian name:" for after this period great was 
the corrupted and demoralized condition of almost 
all the states of Greece. And although a momentary 
gleam of liberty might spring upon the darkening 
face of affairs, it was but to expose more fully and 
to paint in a clearer light the ungrateful remem- 
brance of that unworthy tribute thus paid to the 
authors of her pristine greatness. 

The intestine dissentions of the Greeks tended 
greatly to relax her internal vigour, the effects of 
which were deeply felt in every attempt to recog- 
nise her former feature. The rising prosperity of 
Rome very sensibly affected the declining orb of 
Greece ; for as the one nation advanced in glory, 
the other decayed. 

In the republican times poetry was less esteemed, 
aud in consequence the division of intellectual 
labour enlisted fewer men of genius in its service. 
For the evil days of Greece were come : the Greeks 
ceased to be a nation ; the Athenians a people. 
Longinus* has, in a fine passage of melancholy 
beauty, observed this — where he deplores the loss 
of that spirit in herself which she but too lavishly 
infused into the heart of her fearless rival. She 
needs neither the pen of the eulogist, nor the sym- 



* 'Ot vvv ioiKafiev iraido/AaO^s eiuaL Sov\das, to?s avrrjs eOecri nal iTrirrjSev- 
fxaaiv e| airahuv en <ppovr\iiaTu>v fxovovovK ii/ecrirapyavwvduoi, kou ftyevcrroi 
Ka\\is-ov iced yovi^iurdrov \6ywv vdnaros' rtyu 4\evdegiav, e<pe, \eyw Sloircp 
ovhlv '6ti fi)) K6\anes iKfiaivofieu fxeyaAo<pveis. 



152 

pa thy of the historian, to describe the sorrows of 
her widowhood : we may with them of old say, 
M how are the mighty fallen," for she sunk to rise 
no more. 

The restless spirit of Greece thus curbed from 
public affairs, wasted itself in petty intrigues. The 
orator also shared in the general degeneracy : he 
felt himself degraded, and he felt that he addressed 
a degraded audience. He who had stimulated the 
citizens to action, felt an irresistible coldness come 
over his efforts : he was in effect condemned to 
silence. Oh ! worse than chains ! as our own Milton 
expresses himself. 

The muse, yea, her own muse, which had hitherto 
like a tutelar deity, protected this fairy land, fled ; 
and of this clime of song and liberty scarcely a 
wreck remains, save in the verse of those who to 
the ears of dying time shall speak her praise. 



153 



GREEK CLASSIC WRITERS. 



B.C. 

Aristophanes, comic poet 389 

Anacreon, lyric poet 474 

Aristotle, philosopher 322 

Archimedes, mathematician and philosopher 200 

Athenaeus, philosopher 190 

Demosthenes, orator 322 

Diogenes Laertius, cynic philosopher 122 

Dionysius Periegetes, poet 20 

Dionysius Halicarnassus, historian 5 

iEsopus, Phrygian philosopher 570 

Euripides, tragic poet 407 

iEschylus, writer of plays 456 

Euclid, mathematician 200 

Heliodorus, rhetorician 309 

Hesiod, poet, &c 870 

Homer, poet 850 

Herodotus, historian 484 

Hierocles, philosopher 480 

Isseus, orator 320 

Lycophron, poet and grammarian 276 

Lucian, writer of dialogues 180 

Lysias, orator 162 

Musaeus, poet (early) uncertain 

Orpheus, poet ditto 

Pindar, lyric poet 435 

Plato, philosopher 340 



154 



Pausanias, orator and historian 170 

Plutarch, philosopher and biographer 120 

Sappho, poetess 600 

Sophocles, tragedian 406 

Theocritus, pastoral poet 262 

Thucydides, historian 381 

Xenophon, historian 360 



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AUTHOR OP AN "ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE :" 

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* Grove House is pleasantly situated at the outskirts of the 
Town, the Rooms spacious and airy, and Grounds extensive, 
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Road. 

Grove House, July, 1833. 




DONCASTER: 

PRINTED BY BROOKE AND CO. HIGH-STREET. 




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